As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process.
I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans can do that too if they want.
ok the discussion is about if Apple is a monopoly by the legal definition, if we followed your prescription it would mean we would be unable to have this discussion.
One of the most important discussions in tech has to do with what companies are monopolies, in essence you are saying Hacker News cannot have this important discussion!
I can't really comment more on this idea as I feel I would be compelled to violate HN guidelines.
We can have that discussion, fiction is a popular genre and I don't see why we can't have a lawsuit fiction. Just don't confuse it with reality.
Anyway, I don't like to pretend that we are in a court. Law is simply a system that countries find useful to deal with issues and it is its own thing that not always just and can change over time and need specialisation for doing correctly.
Just remember, Alan Turing was lawfully castrated back in the 50s. Let's not pretend that the lawful process is analogous to justice, it's simply a rules system where actors are executing the rules based on the available information and cannot be performed when rules, actors or information is missing.
Even if we were judges, how are we supposed to execute the legal process without collecting the necessary data, have the claims and defences? Therefore, the legal definition is irrelevant and it's actually wrecking the discussion by pushing it to a position where we don't have the tools to work on.
That's just it; I don't think you can speak of a monopoly as long as you have a reasonable choice. Which, in the US, you DON'T have for a lot of things like internet.
> As we are not in a court in here, only the laymen opinion is relevant as it is impossible to make a strict legal discussion without having a strict legal process.
I would love to make this argument the next time vaccines are mentioned. Remember vaccines cause autism and turn the frogs gay. Any attempt to correct this using medical jargon or methods is literally out of scope for the average hacker news commenter and should be avoided.
For legal process we need to have Apple, Google and others provide us with their documents and arguments - which is not happening. We can't even have well educated guess as these things need cooperating parties or enforcement power to obtain.
On the other hand, when discussing vaccines and viruses there are numerous research in the open that we can use to build on. Any use of correct medical jargon or methods is fine as it is not a protected information. Of course you can misunderstand it but you can also understand it properly since the research and data is in the open.
Discussing what's just based on information and observations we have is like discussing vaccines and viruses based on the research and observations we have access to.
Discussing the legal process is like discussing the FDA application of a drug. It can happen only if you are part of the process or after it comes to a conclusion and information used in the ruling is made public.
I would say, Apple is very popular in the US but I don't see how it can be a monopoly when you can just order another device from Amazon and that device being just good or maybe better. In many other rich countries, people are choosing Samsung, Americans can do that too if they want.