[ustolemyname]

To have this analogy encompass the full situation, you're also a residential landlord who owns 50% of all residential housing in the US. Your tenants are only allowed to have things in their home that came from the market you control. Things bought in the market also cannot be placed in housing you do not control.

You argue you don't have a monopoly because your tenants can always move, even though most of their possessions cannot be moved to other housing.

Reasoning by analogy is bad, but I think it's important to note that most people's phones are their digital home. It is not a low friction situation to just "shop elsewhere" for a single product when it wouldn't be compatible with your home.

[Spivak]

This is where I think the disconnect is. I see the entire iOS device as Apple's marketplace and so the housing analogy doesn't make sense to me. The app is your stall where you're allowed to sell things and conduct business.

I'm not saying it's low friction at all. Hell I would try to make my hypothetical market as high-friction as possible by having a prepaid high-cost membership fee, as many exclusives as I could find, and lots of benefits and services tied to it. This just seems like business.