Well, luckily we have an expert in the house with you then, (well, any expert who thinks seller and monopoly situation are not (very) different..)

I’d prefer not to use the authority argument, but I’ve already studied this and still come across it occasionally (although my expertise now lies elsewhere).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Vendor Lock-in, as long as it does not prevent other parties from entering the market. The idea behind Lock-in is that you make it too expensive and/or inconvenient for the customer to switch to another supplier.

Monopoly is not prohibited by law.

What is forbidden is the abuse of a dominant position of economic power. There is no comprehensive list of what this is. Dominant position is “the dominant economic position of an enterprise, which enables it to prevent the maintenance of effective competition in the relevant market by being strong enough to act to a significant extent independently of its competitors, its customers, and ultimately consumers”

Again, with all due respect, you make it very convincing, but what you say isn’t legal at all.

What should actually happen is that we cut all those lawsuits here and there and it’s up to politicians to make policy directed at this time.

Bottom line, governments must arm and direct their masters of the market to deal with abuses, and then there will be a long legal battle as every sophomore in law will be able to extract the legal argument from both sides. What is the result is a coincidence that no one will say, not even you.

In fact, according to the monopoly guidelines, Apple is not even a monopoly, it owns approximately 15-20% of the market with its products.

To come back to this for a moment, I don’t know what you mean by “monopoly guidelines”, but there The law as defined by the previous cases Which says that with 20% of the market share you can really be dominant. It depends on many more factors than market share, as you can define market (1) and market share (2) in almost infinite ways.

An important component of defining a dominant position is how easily customers can turn to competition. The influence of the network has already been discussed several times in competition issues and can be a strong indicator of a dominant position. Using the same logic, it is clear that the seller’s lock is also rubbed.

Again, it’s more complex and subtle than I can write in a reply in 3 minutes, and I’m certainly not saying that a seller who locks himself up by definition means a dominant position. What I’m saying is that your story is by no means legally correct.

(1) For example, global/national/local, commercial and consumer separately or together. Perhaps only a specific segment of the business (eg financial customers) or consumer market (eg youth). Only smartphones, or all mobile phones, or all mobile devices, or all electronic devices, etc. Are you looking for software (operating system) or hardware (phones)
(ii) For example, percentage of number of customers, percentage of devices sold, percentage of sales made in the market, percentage of profits made in the market, etc.

If Apple hired me, I would define market and market share very differently than if I were hired by a potential market watchdog. Then the question is how the judge will deal with it.

[Reactie gewijzigd door ph4ge op 20 augustus 2021 14:00]