> The antitrust investigation is focused on X so Y doesn't really apply there.
Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized.
There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices".
Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market).
Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy.
> "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices"
This is clearly the case though? The App Store doesn't sell, say, Windows software, and iOS devices refuse to run software from (for example) the Google Play store.
Yes it's clearly the case, but it's not clear that there are any market benefits by the government forcing all app stores to sell all software, irrespective of the platform the software runs on. This would effectively deny all businesses the ability to work just in their niche/forte and destroys the "competitive advantage" (economics term) of most/all businesses.
Antitrust prosecutions are heavily dependent upon shaping the "market" which supposedly is being monopolized.
There is no good argument for antitrust against the Apple App Store if the market is "all transactional marketplaces where software can be purchased", but there is a good argument if the market is narrowly defined as "all transactional marketplaces where software can be installed onto iOS mobile devices".
Look for similar shaping of the market by both sides (the prosecutor will attempt to narrow the market and the defendants will attempt to broaden the market).
Also worth noting that Amazon already chipping away at Google's market share dominance in online advertising[1]. By the time the DOJ's prosecution goes thru the courts, the market is likely to be significantly changed from where it was when AG Sessions (who started these investigations) started crafting an anti-tech-giants strategy.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/amazon-is-eating-into-google...