> when in fact many smartphone manufacturers have done precisely that
Yes, if you're already poised at the lowest part of the platform stack, you can sell hardware that competes with Apple's hardware, but it can't fully compete, because you can't offer a better solution to host iOS on, you can only offer to be part of platform that competes. You cannot compete with Apple hardware directly on just the hardware level.
> Apple has a very small global market share on smartphones and only around 50% in the US.
I'm not making a case that Apple is a monopoly. I'm making a case that their action are anti-competitive (I'm using this term divorced from any specific legal meaning), and thus bad for their users in that respect.
Would allowing other hardware to run iOS be better or worse for users of iOS and the rest of the Apple ecosystem? In some ways better, in some ways worse, but we can't rely on the market to tell us the result of that specific question, because the market is constrained. We can look at each level of the platform stack similarly.
This is usually brought up as a matter of user choice, but I think it's important to distil that to what it means, competition. Choice means there are at least two competing things to choose from, an given that our economic model requires choice (among other things, such as information about choices) to function correctly.
Do I think Apple has a monopoly, as previously defined by law? No. But I think it's important to note that nobody had a monopoly as defined by law before the late 1800's, because that legal definition didn't exist, and was created to deal with harms we saw because of anti-competitive actions. So, I think Apple isn't a monopoly as we currently define it, but I do think their actions are anti-competitive in large and obvious ways, and that we may need to address that in some manner legislatively. That may mean altering the legal definition of monopoly so it matches, or it may just mean putting some select laws in place to hamper specific anti-competitive behavior (for example, a consumer right to be able to run whatever software you want on your hardware would address some small aspect of this).
That said, I've been a bit loose here in verifying some of my terminology about legal points, and IIRC you have experience in that domain, so I'm sure you can correct me on that if you feel it warranted (and I would welcome it, as well of course as any specific problems you think my argument has).
Yes, if you're already poised at the lowest part of the platform stack, you can sell hardware that competes with Apple's hardware, but it can't fully compete, because you can't offer a better solution to host iOS on, you can only offer to be part of platform that competes. You cannot compete with Apple hardware directly on just the hardware level.
> Apple has a very small global market share on smartphones and only around 50% in the US.
I'm not making a case that Apple is a monopoly. I'm making a case that their action are anti-competitive (I'm using this term divorced from any specific legal meaning), and thus bad for their users in that respect.
Would allowing other hardware to run iOS be better or worse for users of iOS and the rest of the Apple ecosystem? In some ways better, in some ways worse, but we can't rely on the market to tell us the result of that specific question, because the market is constrained. We can look at each level of the platform stack similarly.
This is usually brought up as a matter of user choice, but I think it's important to distil that to what it means, competition. Choice means there are at least two competing things to choose from, an given that our economic model requires choice (among other things, such as information about choices) to function correctly.
Do I think Apple has a monopoly, as previously defined by law? No. But I think it's important to note that nobody had a monopoly as defined by law before the late 1800's, because that legal definition didn't exist, and was created to deal with harms we saw because of anti-competitive actions. So, I think Apple isn't a monopoly as we currently define it, but I do think their actions are anti-competitive in large and obvious ways, and that we may need to address that in some manner legislatively. That may mean altering the legal definition of monopoly so it matches, or it may just mean putting some select laws in place to hamper specific anti-competitive behavior (for example, a consumer right to be able to run whatever software you want on your hardware would address some small aspect of this).
That said, I've been a bit loose here in verifying some of my terminology about legal points, and IIRC you have experience in that domain, so I'm sure you can correct me on that if you feel it warranted (and I would welcome it, as well of course as any specific problems you think my argument has).