I think this is a great example of what I had mentioned as social differences of freedom between the EU and NA - in NA the freedom of businesses is often well protected up until it causes actual harm to human beings[1] - in the EU the freedom of human beings tend to be given priority of those of companies. It's important to remember that there are a lot of freedoms in this world and they often conflict in major ways. A quote that I love is "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins". Freedoms are extremely easy to guarantee if they're non-conflicting but that's rarely the case. In this case the EU is siding with the freedoms of the customers rather than the freedom of the corporation - whether that makes the society less or more free overall is a matter of opinion.

1. I'd point to a great example from one of our current justices in this regard: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/mar/23/neil-gorsuch-sup...

That dissent sent him to the top of the Heritage Foundation SC shortlist for being a corporate kowtowing stooge.

> If you don't like walled gardens you can just not use them (I certainly never bought anything Apple for this very reason), there's no need to infringe on the freedom of everyone else who wants to use walled gardens.

No-one's forcing Apple customers to go outside the walled garden. They can still source their apps from only the Apple App Store.

> line up their pockets with sponsors money.

That's not just an EU problem though. It seems to be well established (and perhaps worse?) in many places.

Companies don't have freedom. People do. Companies are a collection of people that have a responsibility to the people who allow them to operating by charters. In our current age, I'd say that justice in this regard isn't operating as it should, because our governments are allowing selfish individuals within companies to do illegal stuff that go against the original intent of charters. Individuals that would normally be held accountable for their actions are now being protected from being prosecuted for harms they commit while being part business.

Companies are designed and allowed, by characters, to operate within the scope of whats good for society. If it harms the public good then it needs to be reigned in. I have no illusions that companies have the same standing and rights as living beings do. They are lifeless entities meant to be subject to the will of people.

>This actively reduces freedom, the freedom of running your business. You just don't care about it.

In the same way Right to Repair, Minimum Wage, and Disciminatory hiring affects the freedom of running a business, sure. Unfortunately, rules are written in blood and this is happening because other businesses at this point abused the point of labor or customer satisfaction and needed to get dinged for it.

In this case, Blame Microsoft, I guess. Heck, even Google. we already know the result of a closed system abusing its platform and large share to make its product worse. I'm glad we're actually jumping into this before it's too late (like we usually do).