The analagous situation with convenience storea is: If any convenience store chain was able to prevent other convenience store chains from operating in a geographic area, they would have a monopoly in that area. Consumers in that market segment would have no other choice unless they were willing to sell their house and move.
In your example, a consumer can easily leave 7-11 and go to a near by store at a much, much, lower cost than selling a house.
On Android, to have choices beyond the Play Store, all I need to do is change some setting and instal a 3rd party store.
On iPhone, to have choices beyond the AppStore I might be able to run some much more complicated and dangerous software, but only when Apple is behind in the cat and mouse game with jailbreakers.
The root of the question here is one we have to answer as a society. How much should consumer choice cost (relative to the price of the good/service they are choosing). Maybe 5x is reasonable, but 500x is not.
When a company deliberately does everything they can to raise those costs and thoae costs are very high (such as with Apple), I think we should absolutely call those companies to account for anti-competive and monopolostic trade practices.
>The analagous situation with convenience storea is: If any convenience store chain was able to prevent other convenience store chains from operating in a geographic area, they would have a monopoly in that area
This breaks down as there's no "physical area" preventing anything.
You can get an Android phone whether you're in Alaska or Miami or Tanzania. In fact it's easier, and most of the billions in the planet (including high income earners) do just that.
Uh, it's more like the cost of switching your preferred convenience store chain vs. your phone platform. There are alternatives and you might like one more than the other, but at the end of the day both serve the same purpose (buy milk, or computer in my pocket). If this analogy breaks down it's not because Apple has a monopoly, it's because Android ecosystem has not delivered something similar enough to 7-11.
Sure there is, don't buy an Apple device. They aren't the majority or even necessary for anything. Android is a viable alternative and you can sideload applications there.
And, in stark contrast to the MS antitrust case, Apple doesn't have 97% of the market share.
Adding true clauses (e.g. some people want an iphone to project success) doesn't necessarily make a true argument. The conclusion must also be supported by the clauses.
In this case, an argument which amounts to:
"People need to have an iPhone because some business owners feel they need it to project success, thus Apple has a monopoly on something essential"
is so random it can't be even be called wrong.
Whether some "business owners" feel they need an iPhone to "project success" doesn't mean anything, and is an absolutely moot point as to whether Apple is a monopoly, or even as to whether the iPhone is an essential good, or whatever else you had in mind.
"I need this specific platform to succeed for some reason" does not somehow make that platform a monopoly that should be subject to regulatory action.
Apple's management of their platform is not unique, is not meaningfully different from their competitors, and not meaningfully different from the management of similar stores in different industries. Even assuming they actually have built a strong enough brand that people are judged for having a competing product, I fail to see how requiring changes to the App Store solves that problem.
Every business is just a monopoly if you consider it alone, and a single 7 Eleven has 100% marker share among its store.