Because it's not actually in the interests of users/consumers (woohoo! over here! remember us?) for everyone to have to "design their own" interaction model.
Frankly, yes, regulations should exist to serve consumers not companies.
80,000 Apple employees.
~330,171,224 residents of the United States of America.
330,171,224
- 80,000
------------
330,091,224
I would.
And really, optimizing for the rights of the consumer helps everyone, including all Apple employees. And this helps the producer, too, because it allows them to ignore software patents as well.
Software patents weren't for the good of anyone but executives and legislators when legislators first forced them on everyone against the protests of software devs everywhere decades ago, they aren't suddenly for the good of the common man, now, either.
This article explains far more elegantly than I will as to why software patents don't make sense.