> And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections.

Ah yes, we don't trust an actual elected government to enforce consumer protections, so we'll trust a private monopoly instead. In a thread about said government enforcing said consumer protections, no less.

Just because you call it consumer protections doesn't mean that they actually improve consumers' lives, which is the point the other commenter is trying to make but you insist on flattening into a straw man.

You are making a strwman here, not GP. GP litterally responded to, and quoted, this sentence: "And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections.". How do you get that sentence to mean that "consumer protections doesn't mean that they actually improve consumers' lives"? How?

Picking a single sentence in a long comment is flattening.

Apple is not a monopoly. That is why we have contrast points - eg the Android ecosystem, to see how privacy and user centric reality is.

Users are the end customers for apple. For platforms, advertisers are end customers.

All arguments in this thread roll up to -

- You cant have open systems with an advertiser driven economies.

Until people are the end customers for platforms, as ridiculous as it may sound, Apple is the only other choice.

Even MSFT has started inserting ads into Windows. Good grief.

Apple is a monopoly on the market of Apple apps. You can’t just hand-wave away self-created platforms, and given how absolutely important and essential mobile phones are, it’s only fair that the government gets a say there.

That is not the definition on a monopoly.

And if the question is of "its only fair that govt gets a say", then its a question of what Govt says fairly.

If your goal is user freedom, then Apple is the only eco system that is actually pro user, compared to the alternative (Android).

In which case, Govt should be tearing into Android/Google and all advertising driven/invasive platforms.

Govt would have to advocate that Android be out of Google's purview, or all mobile OS dev be separated.

The issue isn't Apple. Its Economics.

We can call it “exerting their power in unrelated markets” as well.

Apples market share is less than Android. Your argument is like saying Amazon is a monopoly in the kindle store.

Some folks are just power hungry and like to wield force unnecessarily.

This but also because of the size of Apple's market. If they sold 1000 phones per year nobody would give a f... about their commercial practices. In the USA apparently Apple is bigger than Android, so about phones Apple is a larger monopolist than Google. In the EU, not as much but still a relevant one.

Android has a 66% market share in the EU, and ~55% in the US - which it gained only recently (~2021/22). Otherwise Android has had the largest share globally.

By definition, A monopoly force does not have a 33% or 50% market share. It has full control.

If you want, you can switch. If you want, you can use products that are NOT locked to a vendor. You have Dropbox, you have obsidian, email - any number of tools that are not vendor locked.

If you want a phone, you can take many of the comparable or superior phones in the Android ecosystem.

This is being phrased as a goal for "User Freedom". If a user wants the freedom to have a locked ecosystem, where they are the actual paying customer, so what?

Any absolutist user freedom argument has to also deal with users who dont want that freedom.

If this is about meaningful freedoms, then the threat is revenue models. There is no reason the Apple ecosystem should outperform Android - yet it does.

While I agree with the distinction between freedom-as-in-{anarchy, liberty), I don’t think this argument stands in case of Apple. Their OS is very secure and has a top notch sandbox - that’s the actual defense boundary on their devices. They do barely any AppStore checks.

I think the optimum would be a well-hidden (like android dev mode, click 6 times on whatever option), but possible sideloading without hacks like AltStore/7-day resigns, etc. Maybe they shouldn’t even allow other stores, just apps - as installing is a very specific permission.

> And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections

The EU probably has the strongest consumer protection laws. And they do enforce them. Which is the subject of the linked story.