Can you make an argument as to how this is different from having to have an account with, say, your ISP?
1. It's not necessarily different. Your ISP has monopolistic power over you, and it should be regulated more aggressively.
2. A non-mobile ISP is currently much less important than an Apple/Google account for interacting with modern society, and less important than it was even a decade ago. If all 1.5 of my available home ISPs turned evil I could manage just fine without them.
3. Given the relative public perceptions this feels weird to say, but Comcast and their ilk are much less problematic than the Apple/Google monopolies. You can largely just pay for internet (plus an extra 10-40% from scammy business practices) and do whatever you want to do, with the analytics they're selling about you being less invasive than those which Apple/Google use.
Google and Apple increasingly become the entity required to identify yourself, either directly ("login with Google/Apple to participate") or indirectly ("use our App on iOS/Android to confirm your identity and participate")
It's not perfect, but nowhere near Google/Apple duopoly. Also this is very local US issue, solvable on city level regulation, while smartphones are everywhere.
Yep. We just need to move Manhattan there. Problem solved.
It's crazy how some people think there's no solution when the solution is "clear as an unmuddied lake...As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer."[0]
Cellphone providers + Starlink mean there’s more than 3 options in basically every US home.
That's not a universal problem though, so random people on the internet won't relate.
- Starlink
- AT&T wireless
- T-Mobile wireless
- Verizon wireless
The choices of fixed ISPs is often more limited (in my area, the physical options are AT&T copper, Xfinity cable, Monkeybrains wireless).
No one is arguing for using ISP-hosted accounts as an alternative.
The core problem isn't even rooted in identity per se, it's about platform owners actively working to limit access to essential information from platforms they cannot profit from.
Even granting the most cherubic motives, this ongoing behavior is atrocious on it's face and should be prevented by any means, including competition, rule making and legislation.