Microsoft had like 95% of the market.

Apple has 50%. Courts have already ruled they’re not a monopoly. Epic asked the Supreme Court to look at that again and they specifically decided not to and to leave the decision in place.

That’s why Apple can do what they’re (now, post order) doing legally and Microsoft couldn’t.

iOS and Android taken together are clearly a monopoly though. So call it a cartel or duopoly with price fixing if you like rather than a monopoly. It's exactly the kind of situation that antitrust laws were created to prevent.

Unless you can find proof of collusion I’m not sure it matters.

Making matters worse the Google Play Store is completely optional you’ve been able to side load for years. To the degree Google prevented that they just got kicked in the teeth for it.

So you’re going to have to argue that the combination of the Apple App Store, plus Google, plus Samsung, plus everything else all work together to screw over users.

Good luck.

> iOS and Android taken together are clearly a monopoly though.

That’s impossible by definition, a literal contradiction in terms.

Thus the following sentence in my comment: "So call it a cartel or duopoly with price fixing if you like rather than a monopoly."

Except that it isn't a cartel and there is no evidence of price fixing.

And there is nothing preventing other companies e.g. Samsung making their own store.

Price fixing doesn’t require active coordination. It can be tacit/implicit.

For it to be illegal it has to involve an agreement between competitors. It doesn’t have to be in writing, but it does require communication.

Setting the price the same as your competitors is not price fixing.

> iOS and Android taken together are clearly a monopoly though.

That's deceptive language that undermines your argument.

A monopoly is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.

If you said "duopoly" your argument would be more easily entertained or if you said "cartel". However, neither of these two characterizations stand up to scrutiny either.

I'm not sure that's a direct comparison. Back then sure you could get shareware but mostly the market was paid boxed software. I can't find a direct source but I remember hearing brick-and-mortar retailers would take even more than 30% of sales. And Visual Studio sure wasn't free.

Everything was different though, you'd be paying for your OS upgrades too which doesn't happen on iOS. I agree 30% is crazy, but the market on iOS they're enabling has to get paid for somehow. That source of revenue was different for Microsoft in the 80s/90s but it still existed.

Throughout the multiple trials that has been a big argument Apple makes. That especially for smaller companies their cut is drastically lower than it would have been for retail software on shelves.

Which conveniently ignores the fact that you can buy software for digital download on the Internet for significantly lower overhead.

But they keep arguing it.

> buy software for digital download on the Internet for significantly lower overhead

But you are looking at that through the lens of an end user.

As a developer, Apple's total acquisition cost i.e. 15/30% is far less than what it costs me to acquire customers through other channels e.g. Paid Ads, Referral etc.

I’m not attempting to look at it in any direction. I was simply stating that Apple had indeed made that exact argument.

And if another developer disagrees for their app it doesn't matter because it made sense for you?

> but the market on iOS they're enabling has to get paid for somehow

How about paying for it with the massive profit they make selling the devices?

As far as I can tell, the only reason Apple’s doing the whole rent-seeking App Store business is “because they can.” Upside is all that money, downside is the developers kinda hate you.

"I remember hearing brick-and-mortar retailers would take even more than 30% of sales"

I'd say the key difference there is that Microsoft didn't own all those retail stores.

Right, and anyone could open a retail store and sell software with a lower mark-up.

> And Visual Studio sure wasn't free.

Visual Studio wasn't free, but it also wasn't required. There are a wide variety of ways to develop software for Microsoft OSes.

I used to sell shareware back in early 2000s and have never sold a box, only online. There used to be payment processors tailored just to this, who were charging way less than 30% for the privilege.