It still seems awkward to say that Apple must allow for competitors, but they're a $2 trillion company now, and I think rules are just weird for companies of that size.
Presumably a store openly promoting pirated apps would be a reason, and a store which has significant malware problems, could both be compelling reasons to permit Apple to do this, but I would go so far as to suggest they should be required to involve the legal system somehow in the process, rather than make a unilateral call.
While this might sound good, this would be impossible to enforce in practice, as everything a company does is revenue-related. Any rules the app store or iOS have are directly related to revenue by definition.
For example, if Apple allowed boundless permissions and tons of buggy apps, their revenue would probably decrease. This issue is harder to regulate than it first seems.
My point was that everything a company does is revenue related, and thus we cannot draw some imaginary line between things that are "more" or "less" revenue related. Restating that we can doesn't move us forward. I would be interested to hear how we can separate some revenue related reasons from others.
Apple only controls 14% of the smartphone market. If Apple is a $2T company, doesn't that mean those 14% of people overall approve of what Apple is doing?
I certainly think some of the restrictions are onerous; but if I had to choose between "Some onerous restrictions on some app developers" and "No way to capture value from applications to support the platform", I'd go with the first one.
Right now, if you don't like what Apple's doing, you can choose not to do with Apple; and if I do, I can choose to go with them. If you get your way & Apple is forced to open up, I'll no longer have that choice.
I can see a world, for example, in which Apple approves a very-limited number of alternate app stores, each of which must still give Apple 30% of what they make from every transaction. So a $1 purchase in Apple's App Store gives them 30 cents, while a $1 purchase in Epic's App Store gives Epic 14 cents, and Apple 6 cents (30% of the 20 cents the ultimate developer doesn't get).
Would that mean Apple would go broke? I don't think so. Would Epic find that it's harder to make things work on 14% than they'd estimated? Could be: they gave up going indie over on Android already. Would I be forced to use the alternate App Store? I suspect only for apps excluded from Apple's App Store, because what developer would want to give up on that revenue?
> Right now, if you don't like what Apple's doing, you can choose not to do with Apple; and if I do, I can choose to go with them
I think the reasoning here misses the point. If Apple were doing something truly dastardly, inarguably evil, would this argument still apply? It's not trivial to switch platforms, though it is possible. And "Apple's way or the highway" shouldn't give them a license to do whatever they want to, no matter what.
I hope that whatever is decided in court, I am able to stick with the Apple experience I know and appreciate. But maybe also I want to use one of the several game-streaming services that Apple will not allow. Must I buy an Android tablet to use Stadia? How much other innovation is currently not happening, or are unavailable to iOS users because of Apple's App Store restrictions?