Some of the trust-busting policymakers’ discussions about tech products are painful to listen to, but it’s all trying to recalibrate anti-trust law to the rise of vertically integrated products, which have created amazing user experiences but but also high switching costs that create the conditions of a monopoly, without meeting the technical definition.
Because they are wrong.
> but but also high switching costs that create the conditions of a monopoly, without meeting the technical definition.
Because they are not monopolies.
If there is a problem, they should address that rather than trying to distort what is happening, otherwise they will simply make bad policies because they are being dishonest.
TL;DR iphones don't have a monopoly, the _AppStore_ has.
On Andoird the situation is a bit murkier, you technically can install software from outside Google's playstore, but you have to click trough scary dialogs(warnings about the danger of doing so), and App Stores installed that way don't have the same device permissions than googles play store have(you have to manually confirm each software update, for example). so yeah, on android it's debatable, but that's a story for another time.
Of course they don’t have a monopoly on mobile apps or app stores or phones. There are competing products.
The problem is that Apple has a monopoly in selling/distributing Apps to iphone users. This is not the case on other operating systems, technically not even on android(eg. Samsung) and has nothing to do with a "monopoly on their own products".
Ford has a monopoly on Ford-branded floor mats! I mean you could choose other floor mats, but if you want Ford-branded ones they got a monopoly. A large audience is not a monopoly. I may not like Android phones, but they are sufficiently good, have almost all the same apps, and plenty of people have them.