I don't think your description of "free market" with some arbitrary constraint on singular party, i.e. Apple, is quite self-consistent, but I digress; the argument is not hinged on holding "freeness of the market" as self-evidently good.

> if all the end-users truly believe that, all the others will fail from no users

Not necessarily. There is a possibility that each individual user may not be valuable enough to the developer to negotiate the Terms of Service imposed on them by the developer. Nor does logistics allow for such negotiation. By voting with our wallets, Apple acts on behalf of all of us securing some of our interests, meanwhile pocketing some money for their mediation service, just like a lawyer, non-profit, union, lobby group, co-op, or agent would do.

I mean free market as opposed to a monopoly market.

>By voting with our wallets, Apple acts on behalf of all of us securing some of our interests, meanwhile pocketing some money for their mediation service, just like a lawyer, non-profit, union, lobby group, co-op, or agent would do.

If you vote against the other options, they'll fail is my point. But by preventing me from being able to vote for other options, Apple is being anti-competitive.

Otherwise, I'm not quite sure what you're saying.

Sure you have a choice--most obvious is Android and in fact that is what most people use. I really don't understand how you can call Apple a monopoly unless you call all vertical integration such. You don't have a choice of your own seat manufacturer when you buy a vehicle either. That's not particularly "anticompetitive".

In any case, this is beside my original point. My original comment was addressing a specific argument that suggested users are not a stakeholder in this matter because the agreement is between developers and Apple, which I find to be a ridiculous characterization. I am not holistically evaluating Apple's market positioning here. As one other comment points out, this is ultimately a broad political choice for the society at large, not necessarily one that could be concluded one way or the other by abstract analysis.

[My personal opinion on this matter is pretty much orthogonal to the "payment methods" debate which I find to ultimately be a negotiation between corporate entities on who earns how much. What I do want for the society to regulate is the ability for the end user to run their own software stack should they choose to, on a device they pay for. I am comfortable with the fact that should you choose to run iOS, you get the entire iOS experience.]

>Sure you have a choice--most obvious is Android and in fact that is what most people use. I really don't understand how you can call Apple a monopoly unless you call all vertical integration such

And what's wrong with more choice?

Because it's about defining the market. To me the market is iOS apps. Not Android apps. I can't get Android apps on iOS nor vice versa. The EU has ruled similarly when using anti-trust against Google: "Google's app store dominance is not constrained by Apple's App Store, which is only available on iOS devices." [0] It's about barrier of entry. "Android device users face switching costs when switching to Apple devices, such as losing their apps, data and contacts, and having to learn how to use a new operating system". A monopoly in California wouldn't be considered okay because you can always move to Florida.

And if you wanna bring up that car analogy, no car manufacturer has monopoly power. Using the term the way the FTC uses it: "a firm with significant and durable market power" [1], not an actual monopoly. You can't really say that Apple, the most valuable company in the world, isn't.

US anti-trust has ruled against vertical integration before when it has harmed competition in the "Hollywood Antitrust Case of 1948". Even if you say Apple isn't a monopoly, movie studios were an oligopoly like we have now with Google and Apple.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_...

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...