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What Is Monopoly Power?

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Law Related
Posted on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 01:43:47 PM EST
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Matt Yglesias writes:

Apple doesn’t have “monopoly power” (its market share isn’t even that big) in the markets for laptops or smart phones. What Apple has is intellectual property—operating systems.

The definition of "relevant market" is crucial here. In a good comment thread, the issue is fleshed out a bit. It's complicated though. A lot of my work involves this issue so I'm not going to write about it here. I will point you to this related development from the past few years - the Bush DOJ's policy on Sherman Act Section 2 enforcement (PDF) and the Obama DOJ's withdrawal of the policy. Now talk amongst yourselves about it.

Speaking (or not, as the case may be) for me only

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    What Is Monopoly Power? | 20 comments (20 topical)

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    Geeze, dusting off everyone's brain today? (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 02:14:43 PM EST
    I'm no techie, I hate tech stuff but I'm surrounded by people who embibe.  I don't see Apple as a monopoly because they haven't captured government regulation in a way that now protects them from competition and also discourages anyone else from entering their industry with superior technology.  They stay on the edge developing new and improved items constantly, and because my husband now owns a Droid I suppose all cell phone manufacturers should thank them for pushing them all ever more to improve and innovate or die.  We all saw what happened to the auto industry when they felt no need to improve upon themselves in sustaining and sustainable ways.

    No no no! (5.00 / 1) (#4)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 02:29:25 PM EST
    The St. James-Tennessee-New York monopoly is the one you want.

    First, more bang for the buck - houses cost less to build and the rents collected are higher than other comparably priced properties.

    Plus, given the Go To Jail square and community and Chance cards that send you to Jail, Go, and other properties, there statistical likelihood of landing on that monopoly is higher than for any other.

    You have it all wrong. Boardwalk and Park Place are fool's gold in Monopoly.

    Actually (none / 0) (#9)
    by jbindc on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:10:53 PM EST
    The Purple properties - cheap to buy, cheap to buy houses, and everyone hits them coming around "GO"

    Parent
    Yeah, I always went for the kdog green (none / 0) (#10)
    by ruffian on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:12:03 PM EST
    strategy...and nearly always lost to the person that had the orange and yellow.

    You could not be a cheating banker in my family -we watched the banker like hawks!

    Parent

    Forget buying properties. Just be the bank and (none / 0) (#25)
    by steviez314 on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 07:26:13 PM EST
    when no one's looking, skim a few 100's.

    Just like real life!

    Parent

    What is monopoly power? (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 02:04:09 PM EST
    It's breathing a sigh of relief that you are still able to beat your brilliant ten year-old son at the board game.

    Seriously.

    What is monopoly power?

    May I nominate Emperor Geithner?

    New clothes, naked prejudice, I plead guilty.

    Thats good... (none / 0) (#5)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 02:30:33 PM EST
    but I always preferred the green properties...33% more profit potential.

    But everyone knows the real power in Monopoly resides in who the banker is, and their ethics.  Kinda like real life that way:)

    I was a ruthless capatalist... (none / 0) (#11)
    by kdog on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:27:43 PM EST
    when I was a kid playing Monopoly, my sister smacked me around many times for being an obnoxious winner...I should credit the game for getting such selfish childishness out of my system before reaching adulthood:)

    Parent
    My sister (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by jbindc on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:51:58 PM EST
    (when she played with the younger sibs) was always the banker.  She apparently (ahem) approved loans for herself, and also created new properties - even making deed cards so she could buy the jail, Free Parking, Go, and "Go to Jail" corners.

    A little capitalist in the making!

    Parent

    We can't play Monopoly with my husband (none / 0) (#17)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 04:44:03 PM EST
    I think he thinks the game is really called World Domination, and by midway he starts chanting when people are trying to roll the dice, he makes babies cry.  He can only play word games with the family now like Scrabble and Boggle because he doesn't have a vocabulary that would allow him to dominate the world.  And all of his acting and singing abilities are so bad we can let him play Cranium too.  But a little vein in his temple throbs throughout the whole of every game, particularly Scrabble.

    Parent
    We played Risk when we were (none / 0) (#24)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 06:14:05 PM EST
    engaged and a wedding almost didn't happen.  He is so pushy, and he thought he could just push me off of that little piece of land that looks like Australia.  I took offense.  We spent the whole game fighting over that little patch, and someone else swept the board and actually won :)  He still says that it was MY not giving in that allowed someone other than the two of us win the game.  I say be careful when you pick your power struggles :)

    He is older now though, and he isn't tough anymore, things are slowly moving physically downhill and now he understands NATO :)

    Parent

    Some of those commenters seem to (none / 0) (#6)
    by ruffian on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 02:45:43 PM EST
    be saying that Apple has a monopoly on selling Apple products. I never really thought of it that way, but I guess that's true. And Ford has a monopoly on selling Fords, BMW on BMWs, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with that in my mind, with its complete ignorance of the law.

    Regarding intellectual property, one of the commenters thinks MY glosses over it a bit, and I agree that he does. The software is the guts of the devices. I'm not familiar with the Google model for the Android software - do they develop it themselves, or are they using freeware for a large portion of it, thus enabling them to give it away free to the various phone manufacturers? Maybe Google is so rolling in dough that they can pay developers and still give software away. Otherwise if they are using shareware I suspect some developers will start to feel really ripped off if Google starts making a fortune on Android phones using free software.

    It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

    Seriously (none / 0) (#12)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:32:46 PM EST
    Seriously, Apple only has power in markets where other manufacturers haven't gone yet...e.g. the IPad market where there isn't yet any valid competition.  As soon as other manufacturers take hold, Apple will go the way it did with the PC market...to a low eschelon.  Their IPhones sales have already sunk below Android phone sales.

    Somebody may be mistaking a poor marketing strategy for a "monopoly". If Apple were to open up its Iphone to Google-Android, they'd be kicking hiney.  As it stands, their growth is limited.

    Of course, I can see a day coming when everyone is forced to buy Apple products (via the Affordable Computer Act, of course).  ;-). Good "progressives" will be tauting the benefits of this act, of course because they already own I-everything anyway!

    Hey TIS2 (none / 0) (#13)
    by ruffian on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:46:03 PM EST
    Do you know who develops the Android software? Is that done in house at Google?

    Parent
    You mean the (none / 0) (#15)
    by ruffian on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 03:55:05 PM EST
    Affordable Personal Potential Leveraging Enactment!

    Parent
    Must've missed something (none / 0) (#16)
    by NYShooter on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 04:43:55 PM EST
    Who claimed Apple had a Monopoly on....whatever?

    Apple has a Monopoly on preventing (5.00 / 1) (#18)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 04:46:23 PM EST
    Microsoft from having a Monopoly :)

    Parent
    Nice try (none / 0) (#21)
    by NYShooter on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 06:06:13 PM EST
    But no cigar.

    MSFT owns 86% of the PC market; Most companies charged under the monopoly laws have much lower percentage of dominance.

    I guess what I'm asking (I didn't quite understand the jist of the article BTD linked to) is, does the author claim that Apple is a monopoly? He seems to be saying they have "monopoly power" in iphones, but are not in competition with "smart" phones. Isn't that like saying McDonald has "monopoly" power over Big Macs but not over hamburgers?

    Well, duh

    I may be dull, I don`t get his point.


    Parent

    Yes, that is exactly (none / 0) (#22)
    by Militarytracy on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 06:09:32 PM EST
    like saying that McDonalds has a monopoly on Big Macs.

    Parent
    Microsoft (none / 0) (#23)
    by Coral on Thu Jan 20, 2011 at 06:09:57 PM EST
    has a near monopoly on operating systems for personal computers. Nearly every PC sold has Windows. (sales of Macs with Mac OS are relatively small, same with Linux).

    What we have in US is far-reaching oligopolies that control huge market share. Think agribusiness, publishing...movie biz...

    What Is Monopoly Power? | 20 comments (20 topical)

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