What are the market dynamics that allows the company to get so huge in the first place? Why are there not regulations to prevent that? The problem a lot of people have is the action is reactive rather than proactive. The behaviour is fine and desirable until it is arbitrarily not.
Out of the business? Developers „everywhere“? There was no mobile app business as we know it.
Google had been working on mobile OS since they bought Android - though they did reshape the product after the launch of the (touchscreen) iPhone.
Sure, developers wanted and still want to create native apps with powerful tools (though I sometimes wish, they did focus more on cross-platform compatible web apps when appropriate. The easiness of the distribution and billing provided by the Apple App Store and its low entry barriers certainly were a boon to to developers at the time. That said, and going back to your original claim…
That is reframing it in a strange way.
Whatever Apple’s original plans and motives, they are asserting total control over everything today.
Are App Store policies any more or less restrictive today than they were in 2008? Why were developers happy to take part then but not now?
If you regulate every small business before they get big and powerful, it's overregulation and restriction of free enterprise. If you don't regulate businesses that have become to powerful to ignore, they will abuse their powers to the detriment of others, choice, competition and innovation.
Operating systems and computer platforms (not to be confused with phone models or brands) are markets on which consumers converge on just very few operators/suppliers, due to their strong inherent network effects. Developers won't port their applications to ten different CPU architectures and operating systems - and even if they did, that's not necessarily efficient to the overall market and society.
Mobile applications were a nascent, developing market in 2007. People weren't used to the concept of spending apps for mobile phone apps, and they weren't used to (nor using) the capabilities of modern smartphones as they do today.
That sounds too much like wanting to reserve the right to change the rules of the game after it has already started. And that’s a big no no as far as I’m concerned because it denies me my ability to make informed choices about the products and services I want to buy by removing those choices from the market.
You'll notice the same people repeating over and over how Apple is violating antitrust law with the App Store model using loaded language. But they all fail to notice that governments are NOT charging Apple with violating antitrust law. They're making new laws and regulations to force changes that billion dollar corporations are lobbying for.
Even before she gets anywhere near this far, she'll ask me about the pros and cons. I give her my honest appraisal and advise her accordingly.
Of course, if you fundamentally change iOS, there's no guarantee it would have seen the same success. But given the same level of success, regulation is inevitable.
Ha! So you're saying that they retroactively violated the newly proposed laws because the new laws are in the same category as the old laws. Huh. I'd call that a *unique* legal argument.
That's why I specifically mentioned the global market when I made the claim. And, of course, we've already discussed your use of install base instead of market share when discussing antitrust. Especially since Apple does have over 50% smartphone market share in the US.
More importantly, cost is probably a whole lot bigger factor globally than "open".
I've posted the actual criteria for single firm conduct under US antitrust laws in discussions with you multiple times. You'll continue to ignore them in favor of nebulous claims of "dominance" and "anticompetitive behavior". And then you'll ignore the fact that they aren't being charged under antitrust law to argue that new regulations are the same thing.
Yes, I'm aware that you will continually reframe arguments to parrot your irrelevant US install base statistic.
This is how you make Chrome an even bigger share of the browser market.
Let's see what the future brings.
I don't like Google very much and I don't trust them with additional data in addition to my browsing history.
That's politics. New laws get passed all the time to deal or cope with new developments in society or the economy.
Why should I? Government slowly, but surely, does enforce pretty much the kind of openness I want - in the Apple products I like - and trust more than Android phones.
I wouldn't be surprised if the aren't expanding their advertising network further and further.
Is it? What is it telling with preferring Windows over macOS - or more closed systems?
Government understands the gatekeeping effect of Apple and Google very well.
It will only slow down while using Chrome - since Apple isn't required to change the allocation of processing power for background processes. Customers can pinpoint which apps use most of their battery power today.
The DMA is anything but narrow. It's a big hulking pile of unintended consequences that attempts to shovel a diverse array of situations into a a single label of "gatekeeper" and legislate arbitary rules based on the label.
Developers can already compete outside of this so-called tight grip. They choose the tightly controlled platforms for their benefits.
You're assuming that Apple won't be coerced into making changes to iOS that allow third-party apps the same access as Apple's own apps. After all, if Apple allows its own apps to run in the background, they would be anticompetitive if they didn't allow that for third-parties. Chrome will undoubtedly support more PWA features, and we'll likely start seeing Electron apps on phones as well. Depending on how things go, Apple and Google may either spend less time updating Xcode and Android Studio, or start charging for them, just as MS does for VS. They will find other ways to monetize their platforms.
