I'm fairly sure Apple wasn't accused of anything relating to monopoly power; they were accused of colluding with publishers to effectively force Amazon to move to the "agency" model rather than a wholesale model, giving the publishers control over retail pricing of their books. This is covered by antitrust law, but it has nothing to do with monopolies.
It's not really fair to accuse Apple of "price-gouging," either. (It's also not generally illegal.) Apple never mandated prices for publishers any more than they mandated prices in the App Store; publishers could have moved to the agency model and still decided to sell all their books at $9.99 or less. They didn't have any intention of doing that, of course, but that has little to do with Apple. Publishers were afraid that Amazon was on its way to becoming a monopsony, and that with 90% or more of the ebook market they would be able to simply tell publishers "we've decided you're going to sell your ebooks to us for less now, and because you have nowhere else to go if you want to sell them, you're going to do it."
And honestly, that wasn't an irrational fear. From all appearances, Apple did really violate antitrust law due to the collusion, and one can make a good case that ebook prices from major publishers are generally higher now than they would have been otherwise. But that doesn't mean that this couldn't become a "Vlasic and Walmart" situation, where one seller becomes so powerful that they distort the market. To me, this is the real irony of this whole case: the DOJ was essentially right to go after Apple, but Apple's argument against Amazon is also essentially right. If Apple had just said "we're using the agency model, set your own retail price," they wouldn't have gotten into trouble...and, of course, they'd constantly be undercut by Amazon, which just like Walmart is perfectly willing to sell stuff at a loss to hurt their competitors.
This is something I still worry about with Amazon and "indie" publishing; friends of mine who are self-publishers often say that they make 80-90% of their sales on Amazon. And that's great, at first glance, but Amazon already finds a lot of asterisks to attach to that "70% of your retail price goes to you" promise. (That's only true within a certain price range, they deduct "delivery charges," and there's the whole fustercluck of Kindle Unlimited.) And if at some point Amazon says, "You know, going forward, only 60% of your retail price goes to you," well, who's the competitor who's going to keep them in check? Apple?
It's not really fair to accuse Apple of "price-gouging," either. (It's also not generally illegal.) Apple never mandated prices for publishers any more than they mandated prices in the App Store; publishers could have moved to the agency model and still decided to sell all their books at $9.99 or less. They didn't have any intention of doing that, of course, but that has little to do with Apple. Publishers were afraid that Amazon was on its way to becoming a monopsony, and that with 90% or more of the ebook market they would be able to simply tell publishers "we've decided you're going to sell your ebooks to us for less now, and because you have nowhere else to go if you want to sell them, you're going to do it."
And honestly, that wasn't an irrational fear. From all appearances, Apple did really violate antitrust law due to the collusion, and one can make a good case that ebook prices from major publishers are generally higher now than they would have been otherwise. But that doesn't mean that this couldn't become a "Vlasic and Walmart" situation, where one seller becomes so powerful that they distort the market. To me, this is the real irony of this whole case: the DOJ was essentially right to go after Apple, but Apple's argument against Amazon is also essentially right. If Apple had just said "we're using the agency model, set your own retail price," they wouldn't have gotten into trouble...and, of course, they'd constantly be undercut by Amazon, which just like Walmart is perfectly willing to sell stuff at a loss to hurt their competitors.
This is something I still worry about with Amazon and "indie" publishing; friends of mine who are self-publishers often say that they make 80-90% of their sales on Amazon. And that's great, at first glance, but Amazon already finds a lot of asterisks to attach to that "70% of your retail price goes to you" promise. (That's only true within a certain price range, they deduct "delivery charges," and there's the whole fustercluck of Kindle Unlimited.) And if at some point Amazon says, "You know, going forward, only 60% of your retail price goes to you," well, who's the competitor who's going to keep them in check? Apple?