Apple’s “monopsony” power, and the woman who named it
Amusingly, there are two sets of people arguing about why Apple is bad, and each have their own argument:1. Android sells more, and offers more variety of mobile and wearable devices than Apple. And here’s the data to prove it.2. Apple is a monopoly/monopsony and should be forced to allow more user choice of apps, allow sideloading, lower their prices, lower their app store cut, &c.Which one is is?Apple is like Tesla. They don’t sell more cars than anyone else. They don’t have a stranglehold over vendors. They sell more luxury cars than a bunch of other people. And while you see lots of Teslas on the road, you still see more F-150s.Their market is insanely profitable, and for many developers, their little market is highly profitable. But how is it their fault that app developers don’t shun them for Android-only, or Windows (do they still make a phone OS?)Apple make their own devices. They don’t license an OS and then use shenanigans to force vendors not to offer consumers a choice, like Microsoft did.They make a desirable product, and offer developers a desirable market. But they don't have enough of the market to do whatever they like.They can’t charge $5,000 for a phone and succeed because of network effects. Android phones can call and text Apple phones.They don’t tell developers that apps must be iOS-exclusive to be in the app store.Apple’s current success is exactly what the free market is for. People may grumble about the price of a phone or the keyboards, or the app store cut, but those who pay it do so because the value is there, not because of arbitrary constraints.They aren’t Facebook. Nobody has to buy an iPhone to keep in touch with all their friends who have iPhones.