He said "monopoly power", not "monopoly". You can have monopoly power without having a monopoly.

Antitrust law in the US doesn't actually really care about monopoly. It cares about monopoly power.

Clearly not. See: the results of this case.

Law is predicated on conditions. If you're going to argue that someone used "monopoly power", then you have to show discriminatory practices. A lot of people keep bringing up Standard Oil, and completely overlook the court's consideration of discrimination in rendering its verdict. It is a necessary condition.

So it has neither a monopoly market share, (~27% globally and ~50% locally), nor does it discriminate in favor of wholly owned sham companies in the fashion of Standard Oil's practices.

Guys, we can't go into courts of law and make poop up. Judges will toss you out.

My own opinion is that the laws themselves have to change. A company like Apple will very likely never meet the legal definition of a monopoly. The digital age has outstripped these definitions, and laws need to change to reflect that fact.

> You can have monopoly power without having a monopoly.

Would you mind explaining how a company could hold monopoly power while not actually holding a monopoly?

> There’s no need to speculate, the reason we say Parliament is sovereign is that Parliament ordered Charles I executed for defying them.

Quite arguably, you can’t, but monopoly power (particularly, its expression as pricing power) can be observable (and itself proves an actual monopoly) when monopoly would not be clear by other means.

The ability to price without sales going to a competitor demonstrates the absence of actual competition, regardless of the superficial apparent competition in a described market.

You can just read what the government has said about this topic. It isn't controversial.

https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...

"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages. In addition, that leading position must be sustainable over time: if competitive forces or the entry of new firms could discipline the conduct of the leading firm, courts are unlikely to find that the firm has lasting market power."

Kindly, it would help to familiarize yourself with antitrust history:

"Standard's market share was 64 percent by 1911 when Standard was ordered broken up." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Monopoly_charges_...

Monopoly != anti-trust.

Sounds like we have 12% more to go before we reach precedent.