1. The size of Apple/Alphabet/Samsung makes it difficult to enter the market (see: factories having ridiculous MOQs for small-batch phone manufacturing), pushing everyone else out.

2. The size of the smartphone market makes it impossible to not have to deal with one of the above companies for certification, market penetrance or such. This makes them kingmakers. If a company somehow manages to become Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon, then the phone companies slide them a secret deal under the table. Everyone else gets a market-limiting set of terms that makes sure "tech" stays one of the "top" industries.

Combined, with no entry allowed, and with forces exerted outwards, we see broad social structures orienting /around/ how we use our phones, rather than the other way around, and that includes ad-monetized-absolutely-everything.

Phones and social media, today, are where TVs and broadcasts were in the 1950s/60s. Ubiquity and centralizing forces. If someone told us in the 1950s a TV manufacturer was exerting pressure on our forms of information distribution and was choosing which voices get a seat at the table, we'd rightly call that archaic and wonder why people would accept a technology provider as a market-shaping force. But today we accept it nonetheless. I refuse to believe the argument that the world's largest company can't figure out how to build a secure pipeline without making plenty of my decisions on my behalf...

Whether Apple should be regulated into reducing the fees they charge for access to their hardware and software ecosystem (the ecosystem they unarguably did a pretty stellar job at) is a debatable matter of its own, but it doesn’t strike me as addressing the issue of ad-supported business and how it messes with the way the market is supposed to work.

It is true that platform fee means this distorted business model is unfairly favoured. However, this is just an extension of the business based on ad/data mining (especially social media) being generally unfair in so many ways, and even with zero platform fees that business won’t stop being unfair and won’t be seriously challenged. To reiterate, no one can honestly compete with free; fee reduction merely tweaks the formula from “free vs. $X” to “free vs. slightly less than $X”.

Furthermore, there is the obvious issue that even if an app or service is paid, it can still be additionally monetising user data. Reducing fees will only favour this doubly shady business.

Perhaps what could actually move the needle a bit and make this model less attractive is if walled gardens somehow found a way charge a big fat fee off the ad/data mining revenue, in conjunction with appropriately reducing fees for regular sales of B2C apps and services. Could this be technically possible without walled gardens additionally owning ad exchanges (which might be a can of worms that shouldn’t be opened)?

No. Unlike Google, Meta, and Amazon, Apple is not a gatekeeper to the Internet. They are the gatekeeper to one thing: their own app store. It's tiresome to hear the same anti-"big-tech" hysteria aimed at Apple. They aren't a monopoly, period.

But back to this: "The App Store policies hurt privacy"

No, they don't. The plaintiff bases this admittedly novel whine on the fact that Google and its ilk make money on things other than their software. So by that logic, every company that doesn't conduct business through its app hurts every company that does. Give us a break.

what you actually want is to force all developers to use Apple's distribution and payment systems, so that you can have every app and service from any provider delivered via your chosen mechanisms. that takes away freedom from developers and users who prefer other systems. it eliminates the market for anyone to make or use something better than your chosen options

Not very. Plenty of people, including on HN, agree with you.

> but I actually use my iPhone because it's locked down with a curated app marketplace and secure payment system.

Except it’s not. That argument would be much stronger if the App Store weren’t full of scammy predatory apps which regularly top the top grossing charts.

> I don't want alternative payment methods or app stores.

And I don’t want everything to be a subscription, yet here we are. Just like I have to avoid the majority of apps today, you’ll avoid other App Stores if that is what you want.

You’re at a significant advantage because ignoring other stores is much easier, and opening up the iPhone to third-party stores has an effect on the policies of the main App Store. This is plainly demonstrated by the acceptance of the emulator from the creator of an alternative store. So even by not using those third-party ones, you’re benefiting.

> They're essentially trying to make it impossible to purchase a product I want, which is more monopolistic than the current status quo.

That doesn’t make sense. There’s no monopoly on a product which doesn’t exist.

> iPhones do not have any sort of monopoly on phones.

You don’t have to be a monopoly to be harmful to consumers. Companies have realised that long ago and it’s time consumers do too.

The point of this is so that there is the possibility of escaping that walled garden, arguably welcoming more users into the ecosystem.

Nothing would change for you. Just like android users can keep using all things Google, they have the possibility of installing apps from other sources.

I could hardly believe you only pay through Apple for everything, I mean everything, as THE trustful, others are not trusted, not using other safe payment methods for some products due to security concerns. Not only Apple is secure in this regard.

As there are opt ins on iPhone for so many highly unsecure matters, you could share the most sensitive data with the individual apps with a flick if you wish (sharing personal and very sensitive data, sometimes personal data of others without their consent, like contacts) it is very hard to understand why this particular opt in is ringing your alarm bells of security irrevocably lost and get locked out completely ("impossible to purchase product") that hard....

You can have your choice of not choosing still, while Apple's product design would otherwise remain intact in its current form. Your arguments are very inconsistent.

Further, how much do you think should this be (20%? 10%? 5%?) and if zero, why?

Finally, do you believe Apple should be compensated for the services and marketplace that they are offering, if so, what other strategies do you recommend that they deploy to make everyone happy?

Nintendo for example has NDA where you cannot even share online how much they take.

Also it's not a tax, though arguably it can be termed an "economic rent" (a technical term) that can be considered excessive, but I'm not sure about that.

App fees have basically been the same amount for all time. Literally every single developer looked at the numbers and decided to go into business.

Don't you think this is _maybe_ an overstatement? I was annoyed about this for years but reading your take is borderline satirical.

Is that really the worst thing you've seen big-tech do? That's very fortunate.

What about Blackberry Messenger which was the mobile instant-messaging golden standard for years and BB exclusive for as long as it mattered in the market? Was that too long ago to remember?

I know many MANY people who have lost chats with their loved ones (especially deceased ones) because there is no way to export and save their conversations.

I think this should be as easy as saving photos, which apple makes (somewhat) easier to export.

Back to email, it is pretty horrible to set up my local email server on an apple device. You have to go through these dialogs, apple servers have to be contacted (for "redirection"), and I usually barely get it working.

Yes, people in the EU use WhatsApp, by Meta & Zuckerberg, and from what I've seen, often act as if that is some sort of mark of superiority.

Regardless of the merits of Apple's actions as regards technical interoperability I feel compelled to point out that this in particular is a cultural problem, not technical malfeasance. RCS users still appear as green bubbles and even if the lack of functionality has been remedied the stigma has not. People at my lunch table 20 years ago were drawing artificial distinctions between "MP3s" (portable DAPs) and iPods because the latter were expensive luxury products and the former were not. The same thing is at work here because owning an iPhone is a proxy for one's socioeconomic stratum. I own an iPhone and as soon as an Android user appears in an iMessage group chat some joker immediately makes a green bubble quip - no degraded picture message required.

People that define themselves by conspicuous consumption don't care about interoperability. They care about brand recognition.

Apple didn't make SMS bad, it just was. Apple has since implemented RCS and it hasn't changed how I communicate with people from my iPhone at all.

Google should probably take most of the blame for repeatedly fumbling messaging on non-Apple platforms for the past 2 decades. Every time they had something that was getting any amount of traction it got quickly replaced with some stupid new, worse messaging app so a PO could get a promotion.

Instead of shaming Apple (which won't be very effective IMO), we should aim to improve education. Teach users how SMS/MMS/iMessage work. Tell them that they can install universal messaging apps and so on.

I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and warehouse settings. Or Meta scraping data off your devices without permission to train AI.

And, though I know some folks here disagree, plenty of people around the world believe what's happening in Gaza is a genocide, and Big Tech has materially contributed to making it happen. Or, if you want another example of human cost, talk about how resources for electronics are mined, or how electronics are manufactured.

Saying, "the most evil thing big tech has ever done is make some chat bubbles blue" puts a whole lot of human lives below the color of some chat bubbles.

You can think Apple did a really bad thing by doing that, that's fine. No complaints. But to call it the most evil thing ever done erases an incalculable amount of human suffering.

First of all, when Apple created iMessage, there was no possible way for them to predict that friend groups would use it as a reason to treat members of their groups poorly due to using Android phones.

Second of all, Apple did not deliberately make interacting with non-iMessage users in group chats "look like trash" in order to exclude them. Apple went out of its way to make it possible for iMessage to interoperate with the ubiquitous (in the US) SMS, with reduced features because SMS did not support the better features. If, instead, Apple had just made iMessage not interoperate with SMS at all, you'd be screaming about that instead.

Third of all, if people are leaving others out of chats, that's not Apple's fault. That's something for those families and friend groups to work out amongst themselves. "Hey, guys, I don't have an iPhone, and don't really have the money to get one, so maybe we could use GroupMe/GChat/WhatsApp/Signal/IRC/email/smoke signals/meeting in person/any of the myriad other ways of communicating instead?" A) "Oh, sure, that shouldn't be a problem!" (everything is solved) B) "What? No, we're not going to change anything just because it makes it impossible to actually include you in stuff. That's a you problem!" (turns out, the problem is your friends are assholes)

Apple cannot by any reasonable standard be held to blame for the way bullying, status-seeking teenagers treat each other.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...

What a ridiculous statement. Even with your edit it's still an utterly stupid conclusion to come to.

Off the top of my head I can think of way worse things tech companies have done. Cambridge Analytica scandal, Gmail scanning, the Google Shopping lawsuit, Amazon's product clone hijack, Facebooks mood manipulation experiment, Ring doorbell viewing, Uber spying, to name just a few FAR worse things tech companies have done.

In antitrust terms, it is a form of Vendor Lock-In[0], and could be seen as a form of Tying[1]:

> Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.

As an example, Apple was sued successfully in the early 200s for selling music in a format that could only be played on iPods. iTunes is a platform Apple controls and invented, yet still it was deemed illegal for them to unfairly lock in customers and prevent them from using competing portable music players.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)

This isn't about the a consumer's right to buy a different phone. It's about a business's right to do business with customers without Apple in the middle. And it's specifically about Apple's monopoly power over those businesses. No government is going to accept that some company, Apple, gets that kind of control.

Once a company becomes massive enough and displays properties of a monopoly, the rules of free commerce change

(that being said, I agree that Apple largely provides users with a high-quality product)

You're asking a rhetorical question without providing any argument for why the answer should be yes, which makes it pretty easy to just answer the question with the word no.

> Why should I be forced to open up the carefully designed ecosystem I’ve built?

The premise of this question is that they have the right to interfere with how other people choose to interact with each other.

Meanwhile the premise of the government-granted copyright monopoly they've used to build their lock-in system is that you build something and in exchange you can charge money for it. Leveraging that into control over markets external to the one you developed is a thing that should be expressly prohibited.

Do you think the same about printer ink?

Regardless, we need to look at the law - and interoperability has a long history of legal support. Patents protect the product itself, but allow interoperable products. Trade secrets product the product from theft but not reverse engineering.

Even the DMCA has explicit carve-outs for interoperability, though that doesn't stop copyright-abusers from trying to wield it (and sometimes winning due to the money game).

In their own machines they can do whatever they want.

Once they sell it to you, not anymore.

If they wanted that right they shouldn't have sold the computer.

That's the catch-22, said ecosystem is what they want to use because it's considered "secure", but it's only considered secure because it's closed.

It's the same with all the other stuff like frequent locations, photos, etc. It's a walled garden yes, but one that protects your data from bad actors (like Meta heisting whatever they can get their grubby little hands on), and the price is that you can't let others into your garden, or it's no longer walled.

So then we get to like, why do we have laws, what's the goal? And this is where you get down to brass tacks. Almost everyone will agree on three basis vectors in principle:

- aggregate prosperity - broad prosperity and security from want - individual liberty

You've got to grind through a bunch of thought on a spectrum ranging from Das Capital to Atlas Shrugged to make it really tight, but it sort of simplifies down to: pick two. Put differently, for a given raw capability and Gini-like target, you get to allocate so much liberty to which people: if you don't impose punitive taxes on wealth, it centralizes and calcifies into fungibility. Rich people buy laws. This is a super linear process.

So then it becomes about:

- would I want to be rich if it was part of a system that engineers avoidable want

- if yes, could I realistically make it into the rich group

For me the answer to one is no, and so I think we should re-impose the punitive taxes and regulations that break the backs of rich people and megacorps.

But on HN a common if not typical answer to #1 is yes, and so my appeal is: be realistic, you already missed.

I think general purpose computing devices should be open.

This is a moralistic argument, putting legal and business reasons to the side.

Go ahead and lock down specific purpose computing devices, like ATMs, fridge, mouse firmware.

The practice of setting up fiefdoms to become the landlord is an abhorrent practice.

Because not doing so harms the market and society (the article details how). Governments do not exist solely to enforce contracts and property rights. Ideals (e.g. "a man is entitled to the sweat of his brow") are valuable guides, and worth bearing even significant costs to keep, but they are not to be followed blindly, at any cost.

> There are other options out there.

Law and politics (should) step in when "voting with your feet/wallet" fails. You also ignore Apple's middle-man role - consumers can choose (among the very few) different options, but companies serving Apple's captured market cannot.

They invite others to sell on that market, but made themselves gatekeeper and simultaneously a player there, controlling the rules of that market in its favor.

Market forces are unable to flow freely, to the point that it affects the "parent" market (in which the iPhone/iPad competes with others) as well as other markets (where other Hardware and Services are sold).

Their closed market reached a significant size now, so it should be reasonable to step in and ensure fair competition also there.

But thanks to those layers of abstraction, billions of dollar in lobbying and marketing, there is always room to argue that ensuring that free market is unjust, hinders innovation, restricts Apple from competing, etc.

Was that not the sort of rationale Microsoft used to defend its IE shenanigans back in the day?

It was considered to be a violation of antitrust laws then. I don't think Apple would be off the hook now. Especially considering how much more ubiquitous smartphones are in comparison to web browsers back then.

But in this case, I still think Apple has a point. It is not a lawsuit so that consumers can truly own their device, it is not about opening bootloaders and things like that. It is just about not paying the 30% tax to Apple. And while not an Apple fan myself, I understand the appeal of Apple controlling the ecosystem, and paying 30% more for it is not a big deal. By simply buying an Apple device, you show that you are ready to pay a premium for this, so paying a premium for software too seems fitting.

Proton has a point regarding ads though, but it can be seen the other way: maybe Apple should control the ad delivery service too and take its cut too. If Apple does it right, it could actually be a good thing for privacy.

I repeat that it is not what I want, I like being able to do what I want with my hardware, but I see the value in what Apple offers. In this case, let the courts decide.

Yes, except when they use that control to stifle competition. Competition is good, so we want to promote it.

That is sort of the basis for all anti trust law, to my layman’s understanding at least.

Thomas Edison and Company invented a patent system that separated their inventions from being able to be accessed by indie movie makers, and indie producers. Their lawyers would effectively shut down any such movements. This caused them to go all the way to Los Angeles because it was the furthest from New York and they built a movie studio on poverty row that later became the capital of Hollywood movie making.

Once Hollywood became financially strong enough, the lawyers were sent over to shut it down, but the court sided with Hollywood and killed all of the patents because the courts thought that they had abused the pattern system to only benefit a few, what I would like to call the cartel.

The cartel were chosen movie makers, and producers, who had access to the movie making stuff and cameras and equipment by which they would share a percentage of the revenue of the movie production and the theater income with Thomas Edison and Company. Effectively they had what Apple has currently.

I suppose you have the legal right to do whatever you're able to up until people notice the problems you're causing and pass laws against it (or enforce existing ones, as is being attempted here).

Why should it be legally permissible to "sell" general purpose computing devices that are locked by the manufacturer or vendor? How does such behavior benefit society? Aren't locked down, effectively unauditable devices anathema to a free and open society? Isn't the current situation evidence enough that their existence is damaging to the concept of a free market?

If anything, it's the opposite - the bigger Apple is, the worse is the damage they cause.

Of course not. Companies exist only because it is useful to have that sort of legal entity. They should be regulated to ensure that they remain more useful than harmful to society.

I don't own any Apple product, but I do admire occasionally how Apple tries to uphold the quality and security of their ecosystem, even as I principally disagree with the walled garden approach. I certainly hope Apple aspires to keep the quality of their hardware and software high. They should however never control user data or choice of third party services.

"The Sherman Act broadly prohibits 1) anticompetitive agreements and 2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. " source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act

Because once I buy your phone/tablet/whatever, it stops being yours and starts being mine, so I should be in charge of what software it can run from then on.

For companies, there are civil outcomes. This may be undesirable if you have a large financial interest in the company, but it's a tradeoff for the same legislative body allowing you to create a shield from personal liability and taxation.

If you are able to create an ecosystem on your own, do what you like with it.

Does the manufacturer of your refrigerator have the right to control what food you're allowed to put into it? If not, why do you have different standards for computing devices? Why did it ever become okay for Apple to decide what you do with your device after they've sold it to you?

It's one thing to design and built an iKettle in such a way that every aspect from the water filter to the power cord is well thought out but propitiatory. It's another to refuse to plug in to another "inferior" socket because that cuts into your cut of propitiatory cable sales.

If their stuff is so superior, then people will see that and prefer it. They wouldn't need to make it impossible or deliberately painful to use competitors services.

Apple can. They can retain ownership of "their" devices. Instead of selling electronics, they can rent iPhones and iPads to users and thereby retain all control over how/when/if they are used. But good luck pitching that to consumers.

But seriously though: why do people argue that „investing money“ leads to „I can do whatever the hell I want to my client base“? Even if this argument were to hold for all future customers, companies change their TOS all the time. Can I ask for all my money that I paid them back, to exit their ecosystem?..

It's not a question of what you like, it's a question of antitrust laws. You can disagree with them of course, but it is their right to sue Apple if they think Apple is breaking laws.

REQUESTED INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

To remedy Apple’s unlawful unreasonable restraints of trade, monopolization, attemptedmonopolization, and unfair competition, Plaintiff requests that the Court enter injunctive relief,including but not limited to the following:

(a) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer to launch an app first orexclusively on the Apple App Store;

(b) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement by an app developer not to launch a version of theapp with enhanced or differentiated features on a third-party iOS app distribution platform orstore;

(c) Enjoin Apple from conditioning any payment, revenue share, or access toany Apple product or service on an agreement with an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)or carrier not to preinstall an iOS app distribution platform or store other than the Apple AppStore;

(d) Require Apple to provide rival iOS app stores with access to the App Storecatalog to ensure interoperability and to facilitate consumer choice;

(e) Require Apple to permit the distribution of rival iOS app stores through theApple App Store on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms;

(f) Enjoin Apple from requiring developers to use Apple’s IAP system as acondition of offering subscriptions, digital goods, or other IAPs;

(g) Require that third-party application developers be given functionality andaccess to iOS application programming interfaces on terms no worse than the terms Apple allowsfor its first-party applications;

(h) Require Apple to allow developers to fully disable Apple’s IAP system;

...

among other things

Their point is that they, as a separate company, can choose to object and attempt to offer products to help people evade authoritarianism and that Apple shouldn't be able to interfere with that in the US market in ways that they do. Obviously in the market of the authoritarian regime they can interfere, but that has no bearing to a US court.

https://res.cloudinary.com/dbulfrlrz/images/v1751299117/wp-p...

Huh, the __user__ paid for the product, so they own it. After the user handed over their money, Apple has nothing to say about who I do business with on that product, or what the conditions are.

You can say "platform" as much as you like, but that's just Apple's way of forcing their way into the argument.

Someone has to make the platform. If they want recognition for that or compensation, maybe they should apply for government funding. Don't bother the consumer with it.

And if you don't like a government regulating a market, then you haven't seen a company regulate one.

This question has already been asked to the United States Court of Appeals, and the answer was "no"[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

And while Facebook and Google would still be hoarding data, there are a huge amount of games and apps I'd rather pay 5 for that are now ad-fueled invasive crapps and "pay to remove ads" costs 15 instead of 5.

When a significant percentage of the population uses your products and services, expect regulators to prevent you from abusing that significant group.

The capitalism idea that "markets solve all issues" only works when it's regulated so market players play on even-ish odds and the players don't have control of the market. (And even then it doesn't seem to work for public utilities really).

The naive idea that "Apple makes the product let them decide" would fly well for a device with millions of units, but billions is 1000x more and it comes with responsibility, sometimes the responsibility comes late because regulators are slow bureaucrats.

"With power comes responsibility" used to be a thing, now it's "With power responsibility might knock on your doorstep eventually if you abuse it to an extreme level like imposing a third of all REVENUE transacted through their forced store"

Not if you effectively have a monopoly. If there were plenty of (relevant) other app stores, Apple wouldn't be able to tax 30% on every app. The only reason they can is that developers don't have a choice: there are far too many Apple users to ignore, and the only way to sell them an app is through the Apple Store.

Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it."

I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals).

In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects.

</couch-economist>

I did not read this claim. I read the claim that Apple's approach unevenly benefits companies that engage in surveillance capitalism. No one's ad revenue, for instance, must pay a 30% cut of their revenue.

You are making an argument (and then arguing against it) that Proton did not make, as far as I can read.

> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?

I don't think you do. We constrain what companies are permitted to do all the time. Apple must abide by regulatory constraints first, and then they can add the additional constraints they like.

A simple test -- could Apple say, "Everyone is allowed to use Messages, except Hindus"? It's their platform, don't you get to define the constraints because it's your platform? No, we've collectively decided that kicking some people out based on certain characteristics is generally bad.

> Note that the businesses who are lobbying against Apple are operating on the very same capitalist, profit-optimizing interests that drove Apple to choose a walled-garden approach. They are not doing this to make the world a better place, and the vast majority of smartphone users do not even care about this “issue”.

They’re all blatantly self-interested, but Spotify is perhaps the biggest hypocrite among them. They’re continuously bolstering their dominance in the streaming music space at the cost of both users and artists, and when Apple gives them features they’ve asked for they refuse to use them because that’d weaken their case. They only care because if it weren’t for Apple Music they’d for all practical purposes have a monopoly.

Every colleague in my company only targets and tests against Chrome because they honestly considers _everything_ and anything Chrome does as the standard.

As a FF user it hurts me because even if Apple and Mozilla has implemented some feature according to spec these people ignore that in favour of the Chrome way of doing things.

Calling Safari the new ie6 is ignorant of reality.

I have no banner or any advertising, at all.

It is painfully obvious, but Apple's singular goal is to make money (profit for shareholders) and THAT IS A GOOD THING. They'll cut corners, test the boundaries in pursuit of that, and sometimes cross over it.

Suing them is the right way to fix those behaviors.

"We don’t question Apple’s right to act on behalf of authoritarians for the sake of profit, but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means it can enforce this perverse policy on all app developers, forcing them to also be complicit"

Microsoft was hit with monopoly on browser even though you can install anything or go buy a Mac.

But when you control a huge portion of the PC market, and you put it in by default, you are cascading your monopolistic benefits down to installed software.

Apple does not have complete domination of smartphone across all demographics, but they do have domination in many segments.

For example, it is estimated that around 88% of teenagers have iPhones. Apple makes it very hard to leave their ecosystem because of iMessage, Facetime, and ALL of your digital purchases being tied to their ecosystem. So, what happens when all those teens grow up? Do we really think they will leave Apple ecosystem?

What cascades from that is a long term digital domination strategy, and when you have that only one digital store option, now you have a monopoly argument.

Now why would Apple do this? Because they have hobbled Safari so that it does not have modern web APIs which would allow web developers to create web-apps that use APIs that are only allowed on App-store apps on IOS devices.

This forces developers to either make an app for the App-store, or don't have any IOS users.

This is one of many reasons Apple is being sued by the DOJ - because they won't allow any other browser engines on IOS, at least not in the US, the EU slapped them on the wrist and now it's allowed there.

Safari is the current worst web browser in terms of features and bugs, and Apple wants to keep it this way for no better reason but greed. They want to push people to make App-store apps, which they can extract 30% revenue from.

That is anti-competitive, and monopolistic behavior.

Either this is bad faith, or you are uninformed.

> that's the cost of doing business.

All the question is there. Is that the cost of doing business, or is Apple abusing their dominant position?

Because you've redefined the market.

Which part of this article quote don't you understand?

> but Apple’s monopoly over iOS app distribution means

Sure it's their car and they can do whatever they want with it, but consumers are losing choices - which is what anti-monopoly rules are for. Say, Michelin or Pirelli tires are strictly better but Tesla doing this harms consumer choice and that's why it is bad.

Imagine if this were extended to Tesla branded chargers. Or Tesla branded paint. It's your damn car so you should be allowed to do whatever you want with it.

By this logic, there is also no requirement for one to eat and breathe, anyone can simply stop. The problem is the consequences.

Building an iOS app is requirement if you want to provide lots of services and compete on lots of market. The mobile phone OS landscape has become a duopoly, and society is free to impose certain obligations on those companies.