It will turn quite heavily on what is the market in which you assert a monopoly exists. There certainly are alternatives to someone developing mobile apps -- Android, others.

The more narrowly you define it, of course you can make anything seem like a monopoly. Whether that narrow market is truly what is in dispute, is the question.

But you should listen to Thiel's talk on this -- is a restaurant that is the only British food outlet on Main Street, Springfield a monopoly over the British restaurant industry on Main Street?

> is a restaurant that is the only British food outlet on Main Street, Springfield a monopoly over the British restaurant industry on Main Street?

Which brings you to the question of substitution. If the only British food outlet on Main Street, Springfield raises prices by just a modest amount, does that cause a significant number of customers to take their business elsewhere? If so, they haven't got a monopoly and the "elsewhere" is part of the same market, which in that case would presumably include restaurants serving different types of food or which are still in the same general vicinity.

So what's the substitute for the App Store? If they raised prices, could developers switch to Google Play instead? Well, no. Developers need both at once because they each reach different customers. If Apple charged too much a developer might abandon the iOS market entirely and use only Google Play instead of using both, but none of that business from the App Store could get moved to Google Play because those customers don't have Android devices and Google Play doesn't distribute iOS apps. They would just have to lose all of that business, not substitute Google Play for the App Store by moving the customers over there.

Compare this to where you stop selling your boxed software to Amazon but continue selling it to Walmart and Best Buy. Most of the people who would have bought your software on Amazon still want it, so they just buy it from some other place. The same customers. Your iOS customers can't do that because nobody else distributes apps for their devices.

Also notice that they did this on purpose. Suppose the owner of the only "British food outlet on Main Street, Springfield" is also a landlord who owns 20% of the land in the city. They don't have a monopoly on land, but then what they do is build a wall around the portion of the city they own, so that it's a two hour drive around the wall to get out of their domain. Then the competing restaurants that had been "one street over" are on the other side of the wall, which puts them in a different market (can't substitute them anymore), so now they've got a restaurant monopoly.

With a world wide market share of about 20% and being absent from many countries where Android, or classical feature phones rule, hardly makes it a monopoly by letter of law.

You're assuming Android apps and iOS apps are the same market. Which they might be if they both ran on both kinds of devices and you could distribute iOS apps via Google Play or Amazon, but that isn't the case.

It's like having a regional monopoly. Even if Google has 80% of the world market, if no one but Apple has a store in California, they have a monopoly in California. If you (or any of your customers) live where they have a monopoly (i.e. have an iOS device) then no other app distributor is reasonably available.

Obviously they could change that by not restricting iOS users from using other app distributors. They separated iOS app distribution into its own market explicitly and on purpose, but that's still what it is. "Windows app distribution" might be its own market but Microsoft has no monopoly on it.

I am assuming that 99% of people on HN with opinions have zero understanding about law and how it applies to each jurisdiction across the globe.

Like your comment proves by the way.

You're implying that it's wrong even though the economics of it are right and the sane legal systems are going look at the economics of it.

I am implying that anyone that is clueless about law has no place calling Apple whatever they feel like, just because it doesn't fit their world view.

You still haven't given any argument for how they don't have a monopoly on iOS app distribution, or why iOS app distribution and Android app distribution should be considered the same market when they don't run on the same devices, the set of customers is effectively 100% non-overlapping, and they can't in any meaningful way be substituted for one another when a developer would still need both to reach the entire "market" if the market was defined to include customers on both platforms.

You don't get to define what is a monopoly to fit your world view.

The market is mobile phone devices and each device owner is free to set their own rules on their devices.

Apple is just a big supermarket chain, and like any supermarket chain gets to choose what comes on the shelves, don't like it? Go to another digital supermarket and get a law book for your jurisdiction.

world wide market share is immaterial as such decisions are not taken at global level. In US it has ~50% market which makes it dominant enough.

Which still might not be enough legal basis, and when it does, it is specific for one country among 195 acknowledged countries.