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Comment by eridius | Hacker News Reader

Banned on what grounds? Apple doesn't have a monopoly, so there's no anticompetitive angle here.

If you have 2-3 platforms that all have the same restrictions you may not have a monopoly, but you have a cartel in control of the market. Thats pretty anticompetitive IMO.

They have a monopoly on what can be installed on my phone, and censor what gets into the app store, so they are therefore censoring me.

They don't control it though, you could root your phone and install whatever you want.

This isn't always an option, and may violate the DMCA

None of those words mean what you are implying it means.

This only matters if they're the only platform available. But, they're not. You can use Android, its forks, or otherwise. While one can be philosophically opposed to their walled-garden, there is zero legal ground to stand on to regulate Apple in this regard when they are not a monopoly as defined by law.

They have the right to control what is available in their own app store, whether we like it or not.

Calling their control "monopoly" and "censorship" really dilutes the actual meaning of both terms

Sounds like you are talking cross purposes. S/He argues for changing the law and you are explaining the current law.

That wasn't very clear from the original posts, as they discussed anti-competitive behavior and regulators, not new legislation to be written. To me this implied a desire for them to be regulated under current law, which may have been my mistake in reading it.

It makes more sense read with new legislation being the intent, so you have a point.

That said, that type of regulation seems overly heavy-handed IMHO, and I'm typically not an anti-regulation type of person.

You don't have to use their phone you know. Android is substantially better about this, different app stores are possible.

First world problems, eh?

You gave them your blessing to do all this and more when you bought the phone and didn't reject it when you read their terms and conditions for its usage.

iOS has always been a walled garden. Apple is proud of that fact.

I'm sure nobody could stop you putting your own OS on top, or hacking it wide open... But I don't think you have any right to force Apple to alter their software to allow you to do anything.

Apple has monopoly on their store and they have ability to play kingmakers on other platforms with app developers in every niche. Without presence on all relevant platforms your product or service will die off.

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