Remember the fight for net neutrality? Well a lot of the infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by private companies. e.g. Comcast, Verizon.
If Comcast (Google) and Verizon (Apple) both charged 30% markup on anything you bought on Amazon, would you think that's reasonable? Without them, you wouldn't be able to purchase anything at all, of course!
Electric, water utilities are private companies.
There will likely be a legal framework that develops to define a threshold and definition for when something constitutes a "platform" with sufficient market size such that competition within the platform be allowed.
Fundamentally I think it comes down to monopoly. If Comcast is the only way to get internet and they gouge me on price that’s bad.
The App Store is a more premium alternative to the Web. It’ll never be a monopoly — every iPhone comes loaded with Safari for alternative ways to engage with customers.
Well, if they gouge you, you can move to a different neighborhood (switch to android).
Pretty evident when you go through the thought experiment that ecosystems/platforms, with high costs of switching, are a new form of monopoly (at sufficient scale)
If Comcast (Google) and Verizon (Apple) both charged 30% markup on anything you bought on Amazon, would you think that's reasonable? Without them, you wouldn't be able to purchase anything at all, of course!
Electric, water utilities are private companies.
There will likely be a legal framework that develops to define a threshold and definition for when something constitutes a "platform" with sufficient market size such that competition within the platform be allowed.