Thanks - this actually inspired me to write to my senator and congressional rep at the federal level in the US to not regulate Apple or its ability to decide what content goes on the iOS App Store. I love the iPhone and App Store, and Apple has earned my trust with their stewardship of it, and there is no logical reason that they should be regulated differently than any other marketplace. Any proposed changes or regulations that I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad for me personally. I'd actually like to see us pass a digital markets act or similar that guarantees Apple (and Google, etc.) stewardship over their products and platforms.
Certainly I'm one of many voices (honestly outside of a place like HN or tech journals nobody gives even the slightest shit about what Apple does on the App Store) here, but I'll make sure my voice is heard to the extent that it makes sense to engage here.
You could do this yes. But I think efforts to fights these laws will fail.
The digital markets act is already almost guaranteed to pass in Europe, and once Europe has a law on this, the effects will go global.
Whats Apple going to do? Pull out of all of Europe? Do a failed attempt to segregate the market, by making an unlocked EU phone, and a locked USA one (What happens when people import the phones? Sounds pretty easy to get around...)?
Once the floodgates are open, you aren't going to be able to prevent people from installing whatever app store they want on their own phone.
> that I've seen that target the iOS App Store are bad for me personally.
Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only install the iOS app store if you want. You just won't be able to prevent other people from installing whatever app store they want on their phone.
Sort of. I think you are underestimating Apple's ability to get around these laws, or at least section off the worst aspects of them so that using an iPhone sucks only in Europe and not elsewhere. In the US we may see laws introduced, but such laws (thankfully!) will be neutered as they're bad for citizens anyway.
> Fortunately, you'll still have the choice to only install the iOS app store if you want.
Yes, but I'm not sure you understand how this affects the ecosystem. The benefits you think you will incur, will not come to fruition. Instead, everyone will just be worse off except other multi-national American and Chinese internet companies. Privacy benefits are the first that come to mind, and such benefits that Apple has effectively collectively bargained for on behalf of users will be lost. Unfortunately, this will disproportionately affect the less well-off too because they won't be able to afford to pay to avoid cryptoscams, OnlyFans, and insidious adware.
> You just won't be able to prevent other people from installing whatever app store they want on their phone.
That's a product feature. If you want multiple app stores you can already do that on Android. It's like buying an Android phone and asking where your iCloud subscription is and then demanding that Apple offer it. Totally different product.
Sure they could try. At which point they would be fined billions of dollars. Just like how they tried to get around the recent app store dating apps law that was in a small country in the EU, and they got lost in court and kept getting fined.
Europe isn't really a country that just lets people break their laws. If you break them, you'll be fined.
> Apple has effectively collectively bargained
What you are describing is called "using significant market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is designed to prevent.
If your argument is that "monopoly power is a good thing, and I want companies to use their significant market power, in a way that anti trust laws are designed to prevent" I guess you could make that argument.
But I hope you also are consistent and want to repeal common carrier laws, and any other laws that prevent companies from using their significant market power.
Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-trust laws are bad, and that using significant market power to anti-competitive control a market is a good thing, if thats what you believe.
Europe isn't really that much better than the US in this regard. See Volkswagen, FIFA, etc.
> What you are describing is called "using significant market power", and is specifically what anti-trust law is designed to prevent.
Sure if you specifically want to interpret it in the most negative possible light. On the other hand, Apple's position in the market acts as a company who can negotiate on behalf of users (kind of a quasi-union). On our own, no individual can leverage a company like, say, Facebook to have to change how they track users.
> Just say it loud and clear, that you think that anti-trust laws are bad, and that using significant market power to anti-competitive control a market is a good thing, if thats what you believe.
No, because that's a very naive and unrealistic thing to say or think.
Let's actually call this what it is, which is gigantic corporations like Epic and Facebook suing Apple (also a gigantic corporation) because Apple made their predatory business models less profitable. That's all this really is. In every capitalist economy ranging from Norway to Australia to Japan, companies are allowed to create platforms and then engage in business with who they see fit based on rules that they create and enforce on their platform. Facebook and Epic both have rules that they enforce on their platforms. To suggest that the Apple App Store is an anti-competitive marketplace is in the same breath to suggest that Wal-Mart is an anti-competitive marketplace because they won't allow me to sell pornography and Dogecoin. This is made all the more silly when iOS has less market share than Android and you can go and buy an Android phone and install whatever app store you want.
If you are actually interested in anti-competitive behavior, take a look at schemes like the MLS (Multiple Listing System) in the US, or various other internet companies.
The "we" that is currently going through the Democratic process of passing laws which are almost certainly going to pass.
> "We" don't want you to tell us
Feel free to vote for a different lawmaker then. Or that is what you should have done, because it is too late in Europe already. They are going to pass the digital markets act.
Go participate in democracy if you disagree.