Maybe this explanation will help you see how your response to the parent just goes to prove his point:
"Monopolies are thus characterised by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods." - via wikipedia, with book citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
Please don't forget about the last bit. There are a million (bad) substitutes for an iPod, regardless of how they end up connected to the computer. The word monopoly should be used with economic rigor or not at all - even economists tread lightly and discuss heavily before labeling any entity a monopoly.
I actually dislike the wikipedia definition. It suffers from the same general definitional problem: which market?
Setting aside the above, the definition suffers for ignoring the question of why there are no viable substitutes. It's a dangerous omission since the implication, at least with respect to legal policy, is that it is the "fault" of the firm.
The closest one could get to a useful definition of monopoly would be: a firm whose would-be competitors are coercively excluded from competing in the market. Of course even that still suffers from the subjectivity of defining the scope of "the market".
"Monopolies are thus characterised by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods." - via wikipedia, with book citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
Please don't forget about the last bit. There are a million (bad) substitutes for an iPod, regardless of how they end up connected to the computer. The word monopoly should be used with economic rigor or not at all - even economists tread lightly and discuss heavily before labeling any entity a monopoly.