As long as you understood the limitations of the fridge you purchased, i.e. you weren't defrauded, what's the problem? Do you really need a nanny state to prevent you from making bad purchases??
There are many other computing devices that can run operating systems other than Android and iOS, including devices that can run completely unlocked versions of Android. You're just lying.
So your argument here is "Apple isn't a monopoly. The Fairphone is always ab option"?
I'll keep pounding it in people's heads that 30 years ago Microsoft was hit over a web browser. It's a shame these days people would instead revert that and say "just download Netscape". If that worked, sure. But we have decades of market lock in showing it doesn't
The flaw in the Microsoft comparison is that the web browser was installed in, what, 95% of actual computing devices? Remember phones and all of this other cool technology we have didn't exist.
Today there are many phones to choose from. You can buy an iPhone, or a Pixel, or a Galaxy. You can even buy a more open-source style phone with open-source style stores just like any other generic product feature. There is a marketplace and there is competition, it's just that, unlike what so many people here seem to desire, locked-down stores are what the market prefers.
>Remember phones and all of this other cool technology we have didn't exist.
I don't think phones and PCs compete against each other, though. A phone can act like a general computer, but a PC can't act like a phone.
>Today there are many phones to choose from.
We had Linux, mac, BSD and a few other OS's back in the day as well. If we're saying Windows is 95% of PCs back then, I don't think it's controversial saying Apple and Android are 95% of phones. Especially in a day and age where phones are now needed to act as verification for work and school and chat communications are expected to be snappy (so it's not like I can just opt out and go back to dumb phones).
>locked-down stores are what the market prefers.
That's why anti-trust isn't left to "what the market prefers".
Yes, society will always waiver towards idyllic destruction if left ubchecked. People generally "like" monopolies. People yearn for that society on WALL-E where they do minimum work and get maximum dopamine. It's a quirk genes that benefitted us 1000 years ago that haven't adjusted to modern realities.
Governments and non-monopoly businesses alike hate it, though. Don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. Don't want to have a single businessman hold the country hostage later and shift to a plutocracy as they abuse your citizens who work.
That's why it's best to stop it much earlier and not when the company becomes a trillionaire. But now is the 2nd best time.
Seems like there are a relatively large number of competitors to Apple and Google. Eg. Samsung, Motorola, Lenovo, OnePlus, LG, HTC etc. Not to mention Asian brands.
Duopoly might apply if those companies were using their combined dominance to collude and push other competitors out but that isn't really happening as evidenced by the amount of competitors that are in the market.
The problem is that it obviously sucks. If you say "no it doesn't" - you're lying, you know it sucks. Obviously me only being able to refrigerate Walmart goods sucks.
> Do you really need a nanny state
This is a false dichotomy. The reason you're doing this is because you know the current situation sucks major donkey dick and nobody, including you, likes it. So to defend it you have to appeal to something even more sucky. It's the death rattle of a poorly constructed argument.
You don't need a nanny state, quite the opposite! You need a freer market.
When Walmart sells the evil fridge, which I can only assume has been hexed by a swamp witch, what they are actually doing is subverting the free market. They're cheating.
Instead of competing by selling the best groceries or the best fridge, they're competing by artificially limiting their competition. They see the market, say "fuck that market, your market is only our stuff", and force your hand. They've created a soft monopoly.
The misconception about free markets is that, if you just let them be, then they're good. Ha. Every free market player is actively devising every single plan imaginable to make the market less free.
If Walmart could run behind you and lock the doors so that you have to buy their groceries, lest you starve to death, they would. Luckily, the "nanny state" stepped in, and we have a freer market because of it.
So the problem with your fridge example is that if the product was as bad as you say, nobody would buy it and thus there is no risk of a monopoly. If the product is so good that everyone wants it, there goes the rest of your pro-consumer argument.
This whole argument is a neat trick, as you smuggle bad outcomes into a situation where there aren't any by pretending that everyone wants to buy the horrible product.
If you want to make a case that monopolies that arise from consumers overwhelmingly choosing a preferential product are bad, go ahead, but don't construct an impossible scenario where everyone loses their minds and buys a product that provides purely negative value to them just cuz.
