High product margins are usually signs of monopolistic powers used, otherwise profits would slowly move towards cost as time goes forward.

This has not been the case with Apple.

This is only true of products with substitutes. The extreme example being commodities.

Pretty much any luxury brand has high product margins, but certainly not for lack of competition.

Exactly, and luxury brands are characterized by their electivity. While and appstore has formed to become something close to a virtual public good.

Google has basically the same profit margins with their Pixel phones compared to Apple and Android has 85% market share. Yeah you can sideload any app you want on your Android, but I've heard of no even half serious 3rd party competitors to the Play store. Not sure what the point is here.

What do you think of coffee?

That I can make it myself at home and it comes to around 10cents?

Or get it from a cafe, and value my time at around 2-3€ per cup

It's about balancing the market. That's why anti-trust exists. Would you want an insulin monopoly to be able to have 95% margin? Probably not. That's why it's illegal.

Too many usinesses can't live without access to iPhone users.

Epi-pen approx 97% $8/injector, so $16/two-pack, selling for $700 in 2016 https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/01/epipen-outrage-silico...

Of course, software sales have much higher margin of production cost (every copy but the first is free-to-make).

iOS is the minority smartphone OS in the US and in the world. In the world their share is under 20%. In the US it’s under 50%. In both cases, shrinking.

If Apple/iOS is a minority that means someone else must be a majority. Who, exactly, do you think should be the target of that balancing, and why?

It's the fact when you get large enough and force things that are considered unrealistic or anti competitive platform it becomes an issue. This isn't new to American business. It evolves. It use to be oil, steel, ATT, Microsoft.. Now it's Apple. Tech is long over due for a overhaul only a matter of time until some politician uses it to add a feather to their cap. 30% cut of a sale of a mature economy is just crazy.

>30% cut of a sale of a mature economy is just crazy.

That is why it isn't 30% after the first year. It is 15% for subscription based software starting year 2. As I pointed out earlier, Apple also eats credit card transaction costs (~2.5%) and the costs of collecting and paying sales tax in 50 states and 155 countries, app store personnel, servers, etc...

Just only for recurring subscription. There's very little reason to be.