Most interesting part IMO is at the end (emphasis mine): > That, though, is why it is a mistake to read the report as some sort of technocratic document... it is exceptionally difficult to make the case that any of these companies are causing consumer harm, which is the de facto standard for antitrust in the United States. Indeed, what makes Google’s contention that “The competition is only a click away” so infuriati…
In the HN context in particular, it's important to observe that the underlying legal philosophy of monopoly differs in European and US law. It's not just that the laws are different; it's the goals of the laws. The European laws (in general) attempt to stave off competitor harm. They're historically sourced to guild protections and seek to create a situation in which companies can compete. Small players in the market…
The major disagreement, instead, seems to be from the people taking the position that a corporation can't monopolize a market by intentionally isolating it. They want to claim that Google Play doesn't have an effective monopoly for Android apps, even though it has something like 90+% of the Android app market, because the iOS app store exists, even though you can't actually use it to distribute apps to Android devices.
Whether that's the case under the law is something the courts will have to decide, but the harm to consumers is transparent. It creates an insurmountable barrier to creating a major app store competitor, because a challenger would have to establish a major phone platform in order to do it, and the resulting suppression of competition gives the incumbents market power and leads to higher prices. And also prevents the two incumbent app stores from having to even compete with each other.