I've been raving about Lina Khan and the great work she's been doing on busting monopolies. Now it's one of the biggest monopolies of them all! The US Justice Department and more than a dozen states filed a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple yesterday, accusing the giant company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market. Via CNN:

It’s the largest in a recent string of Big Tech companies to face antitrust complaints from the US government, which is cracking down on the massive industry, whose power has gone largely unchecked over the past several decades.

The complaint, said Attorney General Merrick Garland at a news conference, alleges that ”Apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits but by violating federal antitrust law.”

“Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law,” he added.

The long-anticipated lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, comes after years of allegations by critics that Apple has harmed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach to its hardware and software: Apple famously makes its tech easy to use, but it achieves that by tightly controlling – and in some cases, restricting – how third-party companies can interact with the tech behemoth’s products and services. In some cases, Apple may give its own products better access and features than its competitors.

You should read more about this. Turns out, for instance, that in other countries, you have "super apps," used from your account with no restrictions. So when you buy a new phone, all you have to do is reinstall those apps and you have access to the same stuff.

And Apple restricts what apps are available. It's a long and arduous process to get approved.

I think this is the reason Roku took over the streaming market, and not Apple TV -- which was there first. The difference is, Roku allowed developers to create their own streaming channels, and even offered technical guidance.

Apple's business model is built around retaining a closed shop.