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Comment by LeanderK | Hacker News Reader

I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone).

How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild west here, we have rules and they regulate the economy, even for big multinational giants like apple. Sometimes companies even get nationalised (or nationalised companies get sold)!

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“I oppose this legislation that will bring massive good because I can imagine a few edge cases that have almost certainly been addressed but weren’t explicitly stated in the summary I glanced at.”

This type of comment is everywhere on the Internet and completely predictable.

Plus an inability to accept that there will be corner cases and some drawbacks, and that the best you can do with legislation is have the good well outweigh the bad.

Frankly I don’t see how this legislation could possibly bring massive good. For one I like my iPhone how it is and don’t see how I could possibly benefit from this passing.

As an American I think regulation should only be enacted when absolutely necessary, and these laws seem anything but necessary. I’ve rarely seen convincing cases of innovation being stifled or people being harmed by Apple’s walled garden approach. It’s clearly not a market failure because (1) it is extremely profitable and (2) it is not a monopoly. As you can see in this thread, tons of people prefer differently, and those people can buy Androids. I also don’t like how this EU legislation mainly targets American companies.

Forcing Apple to allow other voice assistants will only strengthen Google and Amazons dominance in the voice assistant ecosystem.

Forcing messaging apps to allow cross compatibility only will give them more of my unencrypted messages.

I could go on, but I’m very curious what all of these “massive goods” that I’m not seeing are.

It cost me ~$600 in app purchases to switch from Android to Apple. So “just buy a different OS if you don’t like it” is not a reasonable solution unless you only have free software and it is also free on your target OS. The fact that these licenses can’t be transferred is part of the problem (though I’m not sure that is even addressed in this legislation).

You don’t personally have to benefit from this legislation, you can stay in an “official” configuration until the day you die. For some of us, this opens the door to have a FOSS App Store, or custom apps without having to rebuild them once a week.

I bet you would have said the same thing when Microsoft killed browser competition decades ago using its Windows dominance. Fortunately, the govt acted against Microsoft.

If Microsoft continued its monopolistic practices, it's very likely that the iPhone that you like so much now won't be existing today.

Apple, Google, Microsoft, constantly buy, "sponsor" or sue competitors (whatever is cheapest) in order to keep their monopoly. All innovation is killed or at best assimilated (Star Trek Borg style). It's a bit funny that we ended up with two major platforms for smartphones... Microsoft did have a good grip on the smartphone market before Apple and Google entered, but they couldn't simply buy Apple or Google in order to keep their monopoly, nor can Google buy Apple or vice versa. But they can kill anyone else that tries to innovate.

> Forcing Apple to allow other voice assistants will only strengthen Google and Amazons dominance in the voice assistant ecosystem.

I don't even know what to say to this. Backwards thinking? Apple employee speaking? I seriously wonder why you would use this argument.

> The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple

The default remedy isn't break up, it's 10% of the total worldwide turnover (20% for repeat offenders). The EU can very much fine Google or Apple (and already did so).

If break-up is not possible, retricting or prohibiting access to the EU market is quite possible.

Edit: also, on my dealings with Google, I am contracting with Google Ireland Limited, a company that the EU can break up.

> the walled gardens are clearly a market failure

I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits with wall gardens and it's not done solely for profit. BUT there's also drawbacks and places where walls don't make sense.

Not being able to install arbitrary apps from various app stores provides security, UX consistency, and stability of the software. But there's also drawbacks for things like privacy or abusive censorship or copyright policies.

Given the benefits/drawbacks, the best solution is to have options in the marketplace. If you prefer having more control, don't mind sacrificing deep horizontal product integration, or doing the leg work to make it ideal (doesn't need to always 'just work' predictably), etc, then you should have the option to use an OS/device that offers that.

Personally I'd rather see Google make Android more flexible (for ex: making Google Play Services less restrictive) rather than forcing every OS to be like Android.

But I'm not sure how that could be done via restrictive policy without throwing the baby out with the bath water (other than targeting monopolistic behavior like preventing choice in browsers). Otherwise taking a more-freedom approach would be best, maybe by investing in open platforms, investing in public relations campaigns to make people understand why lack of choice is bad or a consumer-friendly 'open platform' label to guide shoppers, incentives like small tax breaks for offering more open platforms, etc.

For Apple, they could offer a stripped down iOS (like a server edition of a desktop) without all of the services and side-loading restrictions, without having to ditch the current approach that people like.

> Given the benefits/drawbacks, the best solution is to have options in the marketplace.

Android has those options. Please point me to this great privacy and security conscious competitor to Google Play Store.

F-Droid, probably

> I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits to [walled garden]

Do you realise the irony of arguing for free market and a walled garden (not a free market)- simultaneously?

You can't have it both ways, pick your poison

Smartphones are in a market, yes...? I can also buy an Android or Pinephone, or use an open source OS like Graphene. That means you have a choice not to use iPhone's garden or use Google's or none... via F-Droid style app stores.

Do you think free-markets means corporations also need to run their business operations and products/platforms like a market? Because that's not what that means. (Even if it did ideological purity is dumb)

Inversely governments forcing companies to all operate with the same business model is not on a free market.

The only thing that would prevent a walled garden from operating in a free market is if Apple et al was a monopoly/oligopoly and you had no other choices. I've already said antitrust laws for things like browser choice is one of the better solutions than the one proposed.

this is a non-sequetor: just because Smartphones and Shoes are a free market has no relevance of whether Apps are a free market. A has no effect on B.

If you want to sell an app, you have to deal with rules of App Store or Play Store, or Windows Store. You can't even sell pornographic apps - this is the definition of an unfree market.

I would allow the same approaches taken today. I don’t want any of these things, and would buy an android phone if I did.

Apple can be broken up in multiple ways.

- smartphones

- desktop/laptops

- music and video streaming

- App Store and payments with Apple Pay

- chip design

- physical stores

All of those could stand on their own.

Edit: I'm not saying that the EU can break them up but Apple is not a company with a single field where breaking it up is impossible. I misread the parent a bit.

How does the EU force an American company to break up? (Not a rhetorical question)

Perhaps they might pull a China and require them to open a 51% EU-owned subsidiary to do business here, which would then be subject to all sort of restrictions including company size.

As a EU citizen, I would absolutely love it. But I suspect that the EU is bound by many more and much more comprehensive free-trade treaties than China is, and such a draconian approach would require many of them to be renegotiated or exited outright.

They can tax and fine them unsustainable fees, prohibit them from being used there. Thus they can control them. If Apple found that onerous they could choose not to be in business there.

How would the eu force apple to break up? It’s an American company. I guess they could lobby the US, but doesn’t seem close to happening.

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