I've been following some of your comments and I have to say, respectfully, your analogies are lacking, and in general you seem to miss the point (or the consequences of the logic you've been using for that matter).
First of all, US antitrust law is severely lacking and unclear. In fact the Sherman Antitrust Act is so poorly written, that it essentially declares
any form of doing business illegal, so the SCOTUS had to step in to make sure only "unreasonable" forms would be deemed illegal. Don't take my word for it,
here's the FTC explaining pretty much the same.
Because the actual law on the matter is so lacking, most important parts of what are now considered staples of antitrust, have their foundation in case law.
The problem however, is that the subject itself is rather complicated, pitfalls in the form of unintended effects are everywhere, not many cases have the same fact pattern and there's the possibility that case law changes.
In particular the pitfall of unintended effects that can ripple through society, causes many to use analogies in cases that don't have a fact pattern that clearly aligns with prior case law.
Analogies are used in the Epic v Apple case, but analogies are also used outside of the courtroom. Analogies are used here on MacRumors, they're used on Reddit, they're used on Twitter.
Everyone is using analogies and thinks their analogy is the most correct and the other one isn't. Hell, I'm going to use an analogy (sort of) further down this comment.
The reason for these analogies is that there isn't clear cut case law on this, nor are there clear cut codified antitrust laws on this, and the digital world and how it does its commerce, is different from the brick-and-mortar world of yesteryear. So people are left to try and make it simple and make it fit a thing that does have a clear answer (either legally, or logically).
Anyways, having said that, there are some general principles when it comes to antitrust.
The one that seems relevant for the discussion here, with you, is that single brand markets are generally not considered a relevant market for anititrust purposes.
This makes sense. If the opposite was true, then everyone would possibly end up in hot water, just by virtue of making something.
I would have monopoly power with possible antitrust issues in the single brand market of poseidondev comments.
You would have monopoly power with possible antitrust issues in the single brand market of MacDevil7334 comments.
MacRumors would have monopoly power with possible antitrust issues in the single brand market of MacRumors articles.
And fancy analogies notwithstanding, this is what the Apple monopoly over distribution of iOS apps falls under.
That's not to say it had never occurred that single brand markets were considered a relevant market for antitrust purposes, but it's extremely rare and almost always the exceptions involved lock-in.
This is, amongst other things, what Epic is aiming for, but the who's who in the world of antitrust law considers it a "novel" argument, worse for Epic, the judge called it a "novel" argument. Novel in this context means as much as "deviating from current case law" and with it, an uphill battle.
Another general principle in antitrust, is that you preferably would like to see an active act of abuse of market power.
A clear example would be for example, Apple setting a very low commission at the start of the App Store, biding their time, and once everyone had adopted iOS, to then crank up the commission to above market rates.
Instead we see that the terms set at the start of the App Store, and more importantly, before the moment Apple gained significant market power, are the same as they are now and arguably more favorable. This is a thing that needs to be overcome for a multitude of reasons.
It's hard to argue that the disputed terms are uncompetitive, if it leads to an organic growth and success. Within the antitrust bubble, it is presumed that bad terms and uncompetitive behavior without significant market power, will be rooted out by competition with better terms and good behavior, and can't lead to organic growth.
The US legal system generally doesn't like penalizing successful companies for the sake of being successful.
An often used standard to determine problematic monopoly power is "the willful acquisition or maintenance of [monopoly] power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident".
It's hard to argue that the acquisition of the current market power hasn't occurred due to "a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident", and since the terms of the App Store hasn't changed, other than in favor of developers with lower commissions, since the acquisition, it's a difficult argument to make that the maintenance is not a result of the same.
Again, in general you want an active act to be able to point to. It's not impossible to make your case without it, but it's very difficult.
All the other stuff you mentioned in your various analogies is for the most part irrelevant.
What
is relevant however is that that if the terms were in place when they started with almost no market share and no developers on the platform, and
despite those terms developers and users alike flocked to the platform, and the terms or commission rates haven't changed in an adverse way since Apple gained a potentially problematic market power in the antitrust sense (the date of which, as an aside, turns out to be pretty hard to pinpoint by the experts), then it becomes a very difficult case to make, analogies notwithstanding.
These three things, single brand markets (i.e. having a monopoly on your own brand/devices), the lack of a clear act done once substantial market power had been procured, and the fact that
despite these terms users and developers alike willingly flocked to the platform years before
the same terms are considered to be problematic by some parties, are the three biggest hurdles under the current antitrust principles.
The only way to change this, if that is something that's desired, is with new legislation that streamlines, codifies and clarifies antitrust laws.
The problem however is that it would require surgical precision to draft something that doesn't trigger unintended consequences
and that doesn't create loopholes, plus there would be enormous corporate pressure to prevent something new and fresh because the principles that would need to be incorporated into an antitrust reform to take Apple down a peg, would affect a whole lot more than just Apple.
