you can claim it's crap all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that when it came out, it was a huge, gigantic commercial success.
Personally, I don't think "crap" is a fair characterisation. The iPhone has particular flaws which makes it of no interest to me, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as "crap".
But Apple's "success" is a point of contention, given that much of their success may be attributable to some rather
questionable business practises, although I think the iPhone's success is largely a result of clever marketing, rather than anything more sinister.
Unregulated competition is a good thing for consumers.
Regulation pertains to
businesses, not competition per se, and an unregulated market actually tends towards monopolisation (the complete lack of competition), specifically due to a lack of regulation to prevent collusion to exclude competition (which you later extol the virtues of). Deregulation is not, in and of itself, indicative of "freeing" the market. The term was hijacked in the 80s to refer to a period during which governments relinquished control of state-owned monopolies to the private sector (i.e. privatisation or de-nationalisation), which certainly was a good thing (with certain notable exceptions, such as the disastrous semi-privatisation of the NHS into "trusts", and the equally disastrous privatisation of British Rail, which actually resulted in bankruptcy).
But the sort of deregulation we're seeing today (or proposed for the future) is an entirely different animal, and one which poses a considerable threat to the very core of our respective democracies, since unregulated businesses have free reign to do pretty much whatever they wish, including the "freedom" to monopolise through collusion to exclude competition, thus essentially destroying the free market, and potentially undermining our civil liberties in the process (corporatism). This is certainly not good for consumers, or citizens in general.
Ultimately, natural monopolies can benefit consumers because they promote competition.
Monopolies never promote competition, since they may present a difficult (or occasionally impenetrable) barrier to entering the market, depending on whether or not that monopoly is the result of an emerging market. IOW one should never actually encourage or wish for a monopoly, but should hope for a balanced market filled with many players, which then offer consumers the most choice, the highest quality, and the lowest prices. Monopolies may present challenges to drive innovation harder than a balanced market, but is it better to endure years of stagnation followed by a single giant leap in progress, with permanently high prices and little choice, or enjoy low prices and infinite choices in an industry which progresses at a steady and predictable pace?
As I said earlier, if the iPhone wasn't exclusive to ATT would we see all the various iPhone competitors we see now? If you could take your iPhone and go to any other carrier, these competitors would've never emerged because you would have no demand for them.
That's a deeply cynical and totally unsupported argument, which assumes the success of the iPhone's competitors can only be attributed to consumers wishing to avoid AT&T. But according to your own logic that doesn't make any sense, because the iPhone is one of the most popular phones on the market, so it seems the carrier is entirely irrelevant to whether or not someone wants a particular handset, unless the iPhone's success can be attributed to AT&T's popularity, which would then defeat your argument completely.
Look at the seller in the market selling apples again. Let's say I'm the supplier of the apples and I sign an exclusivity contract with one apple vendor. My apples are better quality and better tasting than the apples the competition is selling. You're saying the feds should step in and force me to sell my apples to everyone?
Yes, because you would be colluding to exclude a retailer's competitors from the market, which is actionable under antitrust regulations. The market is free for you to sell, not "free" for you to prevent competitors from selling, unless that "prevention" is a natural by-product of your own success (i.e. you outsell them). That isn't business, it's sabotage, or more accurately racketeering. Coincidentally, this business arrangement doesn't actually make much financial sense to you as the supplier, since you'd be unnecessarily limiting your market exposure. Surely it would make more sense for you to sell to as many retailers as possible, in order to maximise your turnover.
I'm free to live in my house, but that doesn't somehow magically grant me the right to prevent my neighbours from living in
their house. Moreover, I'm free to live, but that doesn't automatically grant me the right to prevent others from living.
And this is the essence of the problem with the American business ethos: it has become utterly bereft of any moral conscience, because of the prevalence of this hysterical paranoia which promotes the idea that the mere existence of someone or something else represents a threat to one's own existence or livelihood, and must therefore be destroyed. Business isn't (or shouldn't be) about destruction, it should be about co-operation, because it's in every businessman's best interest to ensure the success of the commercial ecosystem that supports his company, without which he would have no supply chain or customers.
Wal-mart is famous for moving into towns and putting mom and pop stores out of business. They sell products that are usually poorer quality than what you find in a mom and pop store ... Mom and Pop can't compete with the lower prices and go out of business. Is this a bad thing?
I assume that's a rhetorical question.
A more regulated economy however would ... demand that Wal-mart sell it's products for the same price as Mom and Pop.
Actually no, that's the opposite of what the regulators would demand, since such an arrangement is known as price fixing, and is highly illegal (at least here in the UK).
You seem to have a rather skewed and incomplete comprehension of what market regulation really is.
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