1. In your view, does the government, through antitrust law, have a useful, meaningful role to play in regulating high-tech companies such as Apple, Samsung, and Google? Explain.
2. Will the market automatically correct, in rather rapid fashion, any monopolistic conditions that may develop in the high-tech arena? Explain.
In late April 2012, Business Insider, citing Apple’s dominance in the mobile phone and tablet markets, argued that the “decline of Android signals the rise of Apple’s monopoly.” In recent years, other critics have pointed to Apple’s nearly 70 percent share of the online music market. Then, in mid-November 2012, Michael Wolff wrote in USA Today that “the age of Apple may be over.” As Wolff explained, Apple became America’s most valuable company in 2012 with its shares selling as high as $ 700, but then Apple’s share price fell back dramatically in part because Samsung became a powerful competitor in the smart phone market. At the same time, Samsung tripled its tablet share to 18.4 percent while Apple’s tablet share fell from 60 to 50 percent in one year. In 2013, the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals dismissed a class action by iPod and iTunes buyers claiming that Apple is a monopolist. Analyst Tim Worstall, writing in Forbes, says that we should worry less about monopolies in the tech area because of their fleeting nature: “No one actually gets a monopoly for long enough to be able to fleece consumers through having that monopoly.”