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Comment by lxgr | Hacker News Reader

Companies in quite a few industries have a duty to do business with you, with very few limitations. For example, in some countries/cities, taxis generally can't refuse transportation to you, assuming you're able to pay and not endangering the driver. Having publicly and repeatedly expressed a dislike for taxis, or even wearing a t-shirt saying "taxis in $city are an overpriced monopoly" would not be a valid reason to be refused transportation.

In the EU/under the DMA, Apple now very likely has a duty to transact even with app developers saying mean things about them. That's certainly a very new situation for Apple, but not an unprecedented one.

I'm not sure if throwing more hissy fits and breaking more of their playmates' toys is a good idea now that adults are in the room.

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Taxis in many cities operate under the authority of a government institution [0], so it makes more sense that they have a duty to do business with the public.

Whereas one can often experience waiting for a Lyft/Uber where drivers repeatedly decline service after initially accepting.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion

This doesn't really have anything to do with licensing. There are laws that prohibit businesses from e.g. refusing customers on the basis of race or sex and it doesn't matter if you're a restaurant or a hardware store or a flower shop.

That's true, but is there any reason to believe Apple is acting in such a discriminatory fashion against a protected class of citizen?

This is a different set of laws, different set of protected things that you aren't allowed to discriminate or retaliate against.

"taxis generally can't refuse transportation to you"

The fact that it happens says nothing about whether it's right or not. In my opinion it's wrong and immoral that taxis can't refuse to service you. But taxis are very regulated in many places. In fact, for example, Uber is illegal in Colombia. And still, despite their legal status, Uber is not only very used in Colombia, but it's also safer than getting a normal taxi.

When there's a big power imbalance, putting the onus on the service provider to give a valid reason for denying customers can be more impactful than laying the burden on a user to prove there was discrimination.

Depending on your race/ethnicity/disability/socioeconomic status, taxi drivers might refuse service even though it is against the law. It is easier to win against a taxi driver if they're obligated to explain why they didn't help someone in a wheelchair.

I respectfully disagree because that goes against individual freedom. I understand that historically in the US there's been racism but that's no reason to erode individual freedom.

A taxi company is not an individual.

A corporation is not a person, though. It is a "legal person", which is a really unfortunate term precisely because it confuses the matter of natural rights and freedoms.

Now, I would agree with you if we were talking about individuals. In that case, yeah, I think you should be able to refuse service for any reason or no reason at all to whoever you want. But if you go and get a corporate charter from the government that, for legal and fiscal purposes, creates an entity that is distinct from you-the-actual-person, then I don't see any problem with the same government telling that distinct entity what it can and cannot do. That entity has no natural rights.

A corporation is just an abstraction over a bunch of people. So yes, it does restrict individual freedoms.

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