How many ISPs provide transit for the bits from Apple’s app store? Sony has a bottleneck upstream of your retail purchase that’s analogous to Apple’s App Store bottleneck.
The only thing I see that’s slightly different in your example above is the ability to resell the game once you’re done with it.
No. You could then say "how many NIC manufacturers" or "how many UTP cable manufacturers" etc., as though all of them got their cut from Apple's app store (although one could reasonably argue it is true).
If it is the same, why doesn't Apple allow third party stores even to re-sell apps from app store, competing on price and convenience? As this is what Sony does.
I'm by no means fan of Sony, but these are two completely different situations.
Sony doesn’t care what happens to physical copies of the game once it’s sold, hence: resale is not competition.
There’s no alternative to PlayStation getting their cut.
And it doesn’t matter anyway because brick and mortar resales are going away, PS5 has a “digital only” version of the console, and Xbox had the same thing last gen.
The only thing I see that’s slightly different in your example above is the ability to resell the game once you’re done with it.