Anti-trust is only a joke in the sense that it doesn't get wielded enough. No more of these enormous companies forming unaccountable pseudo-governments of their own. Break them up and let the fragments enliven the market with their revitalized sense of competition. Then, when a victor emerges fat and complacent, break them up again and begin the cycle anew.

Apple's market share also pales in comparison with Microsoft's.

I'm pretty sure Apple never made anyone selling an iPhone pay them for an iOS license on all the phones they sell.

That's not to say Apple's conduct isn't egregious, but the context isn't the same either.

> I'm pretty sure Apple never made anyone selling an iPhone pay them for an iOS license on all the phones they sell.

That's a wildly different situation. Of course Microsoft charges hardware vendors for Windows licenses - we have to pay for them too! Windows is Microsoft's main product - should they be giving away licenses to vendors?!? (I'm ignoring the underlying issue of sell vs produce here, because it's such a clear fallacy it's not even worth explaining)

Microsoft was charging vendors for Windows licenses per computer; even computers that were sold without Windows.

Huh, I've never heard of that...

It was a sizable part of the big Microsoft anti-trust case. And also an earlier case except for MS-DOS instead of Windows.