In the EU this is happening on both fronts:

- The GDPR has Android phone manufacturers to ask consent for different ways of using your data and being able to remove data. This is starting to work, on a Samsung phone Samsung/Google will ask you separate consent for using your data for diagnostics, ad targeting, etc. It's not perfect yet, but regulatory pressure is giving people privacy back.

- The DMA will force Apple to allow side-loading and alternative payment methods without taking a cut.

Once this has all played out, we'll still have a duopoly, but at least users and third-party developers are better protected.

Sorry but that’s not a society I want to continue living in.

There needs to be strict regulations and maybe apple needs to be broken up. Owning the hardware and App Store has already shown have abusive they can be. They need to divest or spin off one of them into a new company or we can pressure politicians to do this for us.

That is the equivalent of telling someone who doesn't like the current dictator to "go live in the desert".

Remember: I did not bring up the bad analogy. Someone abusing their quasi-monopolistic position to charge high fees is not the same as a tax. This was the point of my post. And sure we can pretend it is the same and bend reality till it fits, but that seems to me more like an idological expedition, than an insightful exploration.