Apple to be sued by US Department of Justice for antitrust as soon as tomorrow | Hacker News Reader

Apple to be sued by US Department of Justice for antitrust as soon as tomorrow

9to5mac.com

28 pointslaktak7 comments

> In the EU, Apple has been forced to open up the iPhone to support alternative app marketplaces, alternative payment systems, alternative web browser engines, and give developers deeper access to hardware features like the NFC chip. This was necessary to meet compliance with the just-introduced Digital Markets Act. (It’s unclear if the US will demand similar changes.)

As much as I appreciate anti-trust law, I think it would be far better if the EU put its efforts and money into supporting a truly viable alternative to Apple and Google in the mobile space. It is absolutely ABSURD that smartphones have become nearly mandatory in many ways (it's certainly hard to get by without them), and yet this societal infrastructure is controlled by TWO companies! Two US companies!

Personally, I think it would be far better if we had a new rule in society: once a technology becomes near-universal and required for certain things (some banks require smartphones), companies would be FORCED to open-source the technology and contribute to a community alternative.

> As much as I appreciate anti-trust law, I think it would be far better if the EU put its efforts and money into supporting a truly viable alternative to Apple and Google in the mobile space.

If it was to a company, this would very likely be treated as illegal state aid under the EU's own rules. If open source projects, that might be more viable; the EU does already fund open source projects to some extent.

Totally agree with you, the most probable candidate is the linux phone, but unfortunately I find it lacks maturity.

Yes, there have been several attempts in the past like the Ubuntu Phone, Nokia n900, (I had an n810), etc. The world should seriously fund an open phone as a non-profit initiative, but where people working on it have a fair salary, a guaranteed job, and decent working conditions. Moreover, major services like banks should be legislated to be required to make apps for this phone as well as Android/Apple.

I'm not sure how this would be a better investment than regulating the mobile duopoly, though. Even if they did pursue an Open phone as an initiative, there's no baseline rules for their competitors to play against. Both Google and Apple would be enabled and encouraged to extend their lock-in and create more exploitative ecosystems. Users would be caught in the middle, and surely nobody would switch to the Open phone as a matter of principle.

It kinda feels like recommending that a country build it's own car instead of dictating which cars are and aren't road-safe. They could, but creating an example of what compliance looks like does not in any way ensure the competition will follow.

Large US corps I suspect have been left alone for this long because they are creating economic value for the country. Also it was unclear how the public might react, but the EU actions seem to be beneficial with the rest of the world having to live with inferior products, so now would be a good time to act.

More discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778999

Reply on news.ycombinator.com