It actually isn’t. When you have a choice between paying a premium and paying half as much like 85% of the world. It isn’t a monopoly.

I encourage you to read the original article.

Couple things:

1. The argument isn't that it's a monopoly, it's that it's arguably monopsony. The issue is less that users don't have the choice to buy the phone they want with the OS they want, it's that developers/suppliers are unable to access a huge chunk of the market without being forced to pay 30% of earnings.

2. While it's closer to a "duopsony" than a "monopsony", it gets a little more complicated when you look at the level of each regional market. In the US, Apple's market share is closer to 50%.

Maybe it's not anti-competitive for there to be only 2 app buyers on the market, but maybe it is. That's the debate, and it's by no means clear cut.

The duopoly controls distribution. That's the classic definition of a cartel.

Google and Apple are a cartel.

They made the world worse than it was for software distribution. It used to be open in the 90's and 00's.

The definition of cartel requires collusion. This is reason 101 that HN posters make horrible lawyers.