For Apple and Alphabet, this lawsuit does not seem to be addressing the no other app stores argument, but the fact that they promote their own apps and services over competitors.

I agree that the EU stuff here seems not to be aimed at that, but I'm thinking through what makes the current situation for iOS problematic, and to me, that seems like it's a big part of it (and maybe addressing that would be more important than changing policy associated with a store). Like, the current situation on iOS, as I understand it, is that:

• Apple doesn't let other app stores than their own offer apps for iOS.

• Apple sets a 30% take of all revenue in their app store.

• Apple disallows in-app purchases without that 30% cut.

• Apple doesn't allow apps to direct someone to some other mechanism for feature activation or similar that bypasses that 30% cut.

When you combine all of those, Apple's got a pretty potent monopoly over iOS users, and is leveraging that pretty hard. Like, once you're in the iOS ecosystem, you're basically totally locked in: Apple has no competition.

But the point then becomes, where do you make changes to address that? I am not sure that the EU is aiming at the right spot, because I suspect that if app vendors are simply allowed to direct people to another activation route, that you'll wind up, down the line, with $0 "demo" apps and then all sales taking place outside Apple's app store. That's also problematic.

That's why I was suggesting, instead of disallowing app stores from preventing app vendors from directing people to alternate payment routes, that it's better to disallow app stores from having a monopoly on a platform and mandate that app stores permit "transfers", but permit for a fee to be charged for those. Like, if I want to buy an app from an alternate app store and then transfer that purchase to my app purchase from Apple's app store, I can...but Apple can charge a fee for that transfer. That makes for a competitive app store environment, and avoids both the monopoly situation that exists today and the "store full of $0 apps" scenario.

Selling the iPhone gets you IOS with the apple appstore. If you want another appstore you shouldn’t be looking for the iPhone.

Ehhh. The problem with this is that it's incredibly expensive to create a mobile phone ecosystem. Like, there are basically two options today: Google and Apple, with some fringe providers out there with far smaller ecosystems. Yes, there's a choice...but the choice is basically between Google or Apple, and whichever you choose is locking you into one of those. Yeah, okay, Google is less-restrictive than Apple today, but if they can do what Apple does and chooses to do so, then you're basically looking at Monopoly A or Monopoly B.

Like, I think that being a platform provider is basically a case where being a natural monopoly arises. Yes, no one platform provider may control the whole phone market, but each essentially can control their platform.

A natural monopoly is a monopoly in an industry in which high infrastructural costs and other barriers to entry relative to the size of the market give the largest supplier in an industry, often the first supplier in a market, an overwhelming advantage over potential competitors. Specifically, an industry is a natural monopoly if the total cost of one firm, producing the total output, is lower than the total cost of two or more firms producing the entire production. In that case, it is very probable that a company (monopoly) or minimal number of companies (oligopoly) will form, providing all or most relevant products and/or services. This frequently occurs in industries where capital costs predominate, creating large economies of scale about the size of the market; examples include public utilities such as water services, electricity, telecommunications, mail, etc.[1] Natural monopolies were recognized as potential sources of market failure as early as the 19th century; John Stuart Mill advocated government regulation to make them serve the public good.

Most of Apple's costs are fixed -- the engineering work to do an OS or hardware is the same no matter how many users you have. But the revenue is variable, depends on how many users you have. That makes it really hard to unseat an incumbent, because you have to come in from a position of no revenue.

Every iOS user has a lot of lock-in -- not just due to familiarity with the OS's UI, but due to all the money they've spent on the platform. It's not easy to walk in with a new platform and get those users.

If a platform vendor is also allowed to control retail sales for that platform, then it permits for vertical monopolies: you can use dominance in one area to extend to dominance downstream and upstream. Like, Apple is off doing CPUs and controlling sales of products for their platform.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_integration

A monopoly produced through vertical integration is called a vertical monopoly

Apple has used the vertical integration strategy for 35 years and is one of the most successful companies in the technology industry. Apple centered its business strategy on its own development of integrated hardware, software, and latterly services. They design most of their products in-house, and do not allow their hardware and operating system to be licensed out, which allows the company to apply its company vision to its products.

Large companies such as Apple are more likely than smaller companies to employ vertical integration, as they have more resources to manage each stage of production (e.g. major expansion and funding). Implementing a vertically integrated strategy has helped Apple become a leading platform company; integrating their software (through APIs for third-party application developers) with their own hardware, across all the devices and services they offer.

Vertical integration allows Apple to control production from beginning to end. Other companies may follow the Apple model, but may not see success for some time, both due to the cost of entering the market and taking on the currently successful incumbent, but also by innovating their products to make them more appealing in the marketplace than the current incumbent. Vertical integration requires a company to focus not only on its core business, but also on several difficult areas such as sourcing materials and manufacturing partners, distribution, and finally selling the product.

Another major success of Apple's, is the forward integration with their retail stores, allowing them to sell their products directly to customers (helping customers to buy and use Apple's products and services), additionally helping them to control the prices of their products, and thus to maintain high-profit margins when they do.[20] Apple is also known as one of the world's leading "orchestrators" as they exert control over the entire value chain, but do not do everything in-house (e.g. assembly of iPhones by manufacturing partner Foxconn).[21]

Like, that's a huge vertical monopoly. Monopolies lead to market failure. If you're Apple, that's just peachy. But if you're a consumer, that's awful. And if you're a market regulator, avoiding market failure, whether due to monopoly or another factor, is one of the major reasons for your existence.