Suppose Apple and Google started making cars and put every other car company out of business. Both made the rule that if you bought their car, every product or service that went into the car also had to be purchased through them. You preferred the Apple car world to the Google car world. (All Google cars streamed your location and live video of you and your facially recognized passengers back to Google for analysis of who you did what with where and when, for your "convenience", and Google was the only alternative to Apple.)
Avoiding Google surveillance meant you could only buy an Apple car. You could then only buy gasoline at Apple gas stations. People in your town who wanted to change your oil had to pay an annual fee to Apple to even be considered, would have to pay 30% of revenue to Apple if approved, and could be put out of business at any moment with no recourse by whatever happened in secret behind the Apple fortress walls.
You as a car owner could not choose to buy tires or get "your" car painted or even get your car washed by anyone without going through Apple. You paid Apple for the car wash, because (no matter what you or the people washing your car would prefer) you were Apple's customer and the car you paid for was Apple's car.
For your "safety", of course.
A phone is as fundamental to the infrastructure of your life today as a car. Any company that could utterly control it would probably become a trillion-dollar company.
This is the first good analogy I’ve read for understanding Apple’s power in a way that non tech people can understand.
The problem with most comments shouting “30% is too high!” is that it’s impossible to throw out a better number that isn’t entirely arbitrary. The issue isn’t the number.
The issue is the mechanism by which that number can be enforced.
If we agree smartphones have become essential infrastructure, needed for the modern economy to function, we should not allow just 2 companies to have such power over it.
What makes people uncomfortable about this though, is that Apple has really done nothing wrong to get here. It’s just that their product and the App Store concept they popularized became so successful, that it’s now essential to modern life.
For the people arguing against regulation, I totally understand the uncomfortable feeling that creates.
Avoiding Google surveillance meant you could only buy an Apple car. You could then only buy gasoline at Apple gas stations. People in your town who wanted to change your oil had to pay an annual fee to Apple to even be considered, would have to pay 30% of revenue to Apple if approved, and could be put out of business at any moment with no recourse by whatever happened in secret behind the Apple fortress walls.
You as a car owner could not choose to buy tires or get "your" car painted or even get your car washed by anyone without going through Apple. You paid Apple for the car wash, because (no matter what you or the people washing your car would prefer) you were Apple's customer and the car you paid for was Apple's car.
For your "safety", of course.
A phone is as fundamental to the infrastructure of your life today as a car. Any company that could utterly control it would probably become a trillion-dollar company.