Re:Apple-Epic judge asks why offering iOS users a choice is bad
by Silhouette on Monday May 17, 2021 @08:45AM
(#27182794)
OK, but we still don't seem to have a solid argument for why Apple should be allowed, for competition law purposes, to treat different aspects of its business such as making physical devices, offering a marketplace for users of those devices to obtain software from third parties, and providing payment processing services, as inseparable. As we've been discussing and seem to agree, there is no technical reason those distinct activities couldn't be performed independently, and there are numerous examples of similar arrangements on other platforms where they are. Isn't this situation the epitome of what antitrust rules are supposed to prevent?
The question of what's been done elsewhere isn't relevant, because there are many elsewheres, each with their own origin stories. Most of them look more like iOS than macOS—the personal computer marketplace is something of an outlier when it comes to software distribution.