You are looking at the wrong market. Apple effectively sells places in their marketplace to the developers. Because of the market share[1] of that marketplace on B2C, developers don’t have other choice but to buy from Apple (i.e. pay the cut), so it is indeed a monopoly - on the B2B market.

[1] it is not just the number of iPhone users: if you don’t go to iOS marketplace, your sales on Android may also be impacted.

> Because of the market share of that marketplace on B2C, developers don’t have other choice but to buy from Apple (i.e. pay the cut)

I've been making mobile apps and games for a long time, and this is completely untrue. Developers choose a platform, Google play, iOS or both, very consciously. Other, smaller app stores (based on Android, mostly) also exist. If Google Play radically decreased it's fees, it would actually make a lot of developers to choose Android first.

The fact that it's rational for developers to release their apps on iOS doesn't mean they have no alternative or Apple has a monopoly. It just means it's still better for them to release on iOS than not, even with these fees. Microsoft it's not worth it for them is exactly how free market works. If some users want this cloud gaming enough, it will influence their Android/iOS buy decisions.

> If some users want this cloud gaming enough, it will influence their Android/iOS buy decisions.

This would be true if not for bundling.

Lets say users care about A, B, C .. all the way to Z. Apple makes G really suck, but do the others well and bundles everything so you have to purchase all of them together, now a competitor can't just go in and make a batter G they have to make a better A, B, C and everything else. This is typical anti competitive behavior and result in companies just seeking rent rather than working hard to compete and innovate.

Apple stores sucks because of this, it is really really bad compared to competitors on other platforms like PC, steam is a massively better product since users choose steam it isn't forced upon them by the computer creator.

> I've been making mobile apps and games for a long time, and this is completely untrue.

This may not be true for your business model because your product seems to be an app, but it is not „completely untrue“. Many businesses build apps merely as an interface to their product, but the product is something else. They cannot afford losing significant part of their target audience by being picky. They have to eat the costs and terms of all major stores and pretend to be happy about it. The main complaint about Apple is this one: you have to go mobile to support your sales, but you pay incredibly high tax on that.

I think the main issue is: should the iOS app market be considered a "top-level", government-regulatable market by itself (just like the entire standard market for goods and services of all kinds in the world)?

I think it's unreasonable to see iOS apps as a market. It's part of mobile games market. Otherwise, you would have to arrest executives from any car company, because their car company usually has a monopoly grasp of "spare parts for cars of this company" market.

But spare parts and maintenance is something that many regulators pressure suppliers about, and for good reason. I feel like a lot of people (especially on HN) don't understand the role of regulation and how it can help the end user.