It is not asinine just because you disagree. They already are competing. There is Android, and there is iOS.

Apple certainly could be hemmed in on clear areas of conflict like Spotify.

Opening the platform is not traditional antitrust because consumers like it this way - it’s more about charity for the competition.

I think it's asinine.

Fragmentation: If Apple competes well there won't be any because their app store will be the best on merit not at gunpoint.

Safety: Don't sideload or install unsigned apps. Keep your phone up to date. This doesn't change much except possibly give you the option to be unsafe.

Payment processing: We already see integration with Cash app, Google wallet, Apple pay, Stripe, PayPal, etc. This is not an issue.

Gunpoint? This is rich from a bunch of tinkerers and competitors that literally want the people with guns to force Apple to change its platform because competing with them is too hard, and Android sucks so badly as an alternative. Consumers certainly aren’t making these arguments.

By consumers do you mean the loud but very small minority that defend Apple in comment sections of online articles?

Because if you ask me, my guess is that the average Apple consumer couldn't care less if the platform is opened up or not.

By consumers I mean the people that vote with their wallets by buying iOS devices.

If it helps you sleep at night, keep thinking it’s a very small minority. It’s really not.

I'm glad you realized the connection with voting, because it is the same issue in a real sense: no one gets to vote for an open or a closed system, they only get to vote for an iPhone or a Samsung (which is pretty locked down) or some random third-party phone that will probably suck; you are acting as if the people who voted for an iPhone are agreeing with every single decision made about that platform instead of merely wanting it "on the balance". I honestly mostly use Apple devices because I think their touch screens and trackpads are so good as to be "evil magic"... I thereby own a zillion of them and even use them as my personal devices despite also currently suing them over this very anti-competitive App Store issue, and yet my "vote"--and the votes of everyone like me (and I imagine there are many many such people)--are being counted by you as "voting with my wallet" for a closed system. The reality is that I am simply making the best of a shitty situation with buying an iPhone, and the fact that Apple is able to get away with having a closed system because of some other key benefit doesn't mean they should get to do so :/. Hell: at this point, it would be extremely expensive to switch platforms, because Apple and Google have conspired to build a massive wall preventing people from importing purchases of apps from one platform to the other. I would even lose easy access to all of the music and movies I had gotten on iTunes (which is another reason a lot of people get Apple devices: because they are tied into a vertical content monopoly and a lot of the content I want is effectively only available from Apple). ...and like, I hope you realize that the ridiculously large number of people who bought and iPhone and then--despite it being extremely difficult to do so with requiring the usage of often scary software from annoyingly people from random websites--jailbreak it so they can fix this one key flaw they see in this product... a number that is already stupid high--we tended to get like 12% of users at steady state--but which would obviously be extremely high if only it could have been easier to do!

Yes, you know better than me and my opinion is stupid and foolish. Your post doesn’t really offer than alternative take. All you did is bully me and engage in cyber harassment.

When your immediate response is to have an emotional outburst and tell people they’re stupid, it actually shows you lack intelligence.