I think it is called natural monopoly in economics. And it is one of the more generally accepted[1] economics findings that natural monopolies should not be in the hands of private corporations, but public.

(Obviously one can discuss whether it actually is a monopoly or not given android around.)

[1] One significant exception to this almost universal agreement is of course the private owners of said natural monopolies. Estimating the relevance of their opinion is left as an exercise to the reader...

Natural monopolies are ones where the barrier to entry to provide a service is high. Like a nuclear power company. This fragmentation isn't really in the same category, since clearly many companies have the ability to create a music streaming service or game store with some form of content.

Natural monopolies are ones where having multiple competing services doesn't make sense. Nuclear power isn't, to the extend NPPs make sense it makes sense to have multiple.

Network effects can be and in this case very much are a barrier to entry.

But how many can create a hardware platform like an iphone?

I'd genuinely rather have more options to choose from, and benefit from the competition, than to have only one choice from a company that bans things like GPL apps from their App Store, which is what Apple does.

However, that doesn't mean that that's how the market will pan out with healthy competition. For all we know an app store that really meets its users' needs will win out and have the majority of the market.

> from a company that bans things like GPL apps from their App Store, which is what Apple does.

AFAIR this is not exactly the case.

Software using GPLed code cannot be distributed via the apple App Store because of the GPL clause forbidding additional restrictions. The GPL is incompatible with the App Store license, just as it is for example with the old OpenSSL license. There’s nothing in the App Store rules that forbids GPL code, the restriction comes entirely from the GPL side. It’s a choice the developers of that code have made.

However, if you hold other rights (for example the full Copyright or you entered a special license agreement with the creators of the GPL’ed code), you can distribute such an app via the App Store.

Apple could make exceptions for open-source software. The end result is that Apple will remove software from the App Store if they catch wind that it is GPL, and end users effectively can't use free software on their devices.

How exactly would such an exception look like? The GPL would require that the user can take the binary they downloaded and redistribute it. Or change and recompile it and then run the changed binary. That’s all fundamentally impossible with the iOS App Store.

The GPL is fundamentally at odds with a lot of things, for $reasons. For example, ruby could not be distributed with compiled-in OpenSSL support, until the developers adopted an OpenSSL linking exception.

The GPL or the developers of the GPL’ed software could make an exception for app stores. But the developers have deliberately chosen a license that is incompatible with certain uses, including all app stores - it’s not only the apple App Store that is affected, all consoles for example are affected, too.

> That’s all fundamentally impossible with the iOS App Store.

There's absolutely no reason that Apple wouldn't be able to allow GPL apps legally on their app store. It's just a matter of Apple changing their own terms.

> The GPL could make an exception for app stores

No, it couldn't unless you have a time machine or the ability to get consent from the author every line of GPL code ever written to agree to relicense their code under these new terms.

Apple doesn't even need to make exceptions for the GPL, it could just relax its policy or allow users to install whatever software they want.

That’s not a policy that can easily be changed. It’s a fundamental restriction of the entire system. There is no side loading on iOS devices unless you use a developer account. And that’s not going to change.

The issue with the GPL is not the limitations Apple put in place on their platform, but the additional terms required for distribution in the App Store. This is the reason cited by Adium[1] and VLC[2] developers when their projects were removed for GPL violations.

You can read more about those terms here[2], but they have nothing to do with the iOS security model.

[1] http://adium.im/pipermail/devel_adium.im/2011-January/007973...

[2] https://www.engadget.com/2011-01-09-the-gpl-the-app-store-an...

I don’t see how the “mike gives a copy to Steve who can then run it on his iOS device” can be made to work without side loading (steve can already download his own free copy from the App Store). The FSF seems to argue that this must be possible to be compliant, so yeah, that’s my point.

It wouldn't really affect Apple at all if they allow the sideloading of free apps that are already in the store.

Online game stores are convenient, but I don’t understand why I need to open them and have ads shovelled at me just to use the software I already bought. The app stores integrated into most OSes do not do this. I’d prefer having everything on Steam to running five different bloated game stores, but it seems like a false choice. Why didn’t the old gatekeeper-free business model survive the transition to online distribution?

This is a pretty great analogy and shows why some Apple customers are honestly happy with the current model. Besides, if you allowed more stores, nothing’s going to get cheaper for the customer, Epic will just make slightly more money and charge the same amount and customers will be left with the worse experience. The only advantage of loading apps from anywhere would be to load apps that are banned. Emulators or torrent apps.

> Besides, if you allowed more stores, nothing’s going to get cheaper for the customer

If you allowed more stores, they would have to actually compete to attract customers and prices are a fairly common way to do that. It's exactly what's happening on the PC video game markets with the Epic Store having giveaway and promotions.

So yes, it's pretty much a given that if you allowed more stores it would result in lower prices for customers.

Except 30% is a lot more than "slightly" more money.