I think my position can be succinctly summarized as mobile devices having become essential infrastructure. Access to essential infrastructure ought to be neutral and any regulation surrounding it transparent, regardless of who manufactured it; that's all I'm really arguing here.
My impression is that your position is one of preventing over regulation and preserving a free marketplace. I generally agree, but think that it's essential to maintain the stability and openness of the market by preventing large players from abusing their market dominance. I can't see how allowing Apple (or anyone else) to install themselves as sole gatekeeper of their very large service and then make arbitrary and opaque decisions about who gets to participate in it is in any way a good idea. It seems easily abused and detrimental to the market as a whole - consumers and smaller businesses alike.
Responses to various points from both your comments below, but I suspect any differences in the above is likely to lead to differences in the below being largely irrelevant to each of us.
Re unrelated market segments: I'm pointing out that, for example, Tesla's car app is expected by consumers to work with both Android and iOS. I don't think anyone is arguing that Tesla and Apple are in competition (or even remotely related) though. It seems silly to me to suggest that if Apple terminated business with Tesla that Tesla should simply roll their own infrastructure and expect consumers to switch away from iOS. That's an absolutely enormous barrier to entry, and easily abused. DJI provides an app for their drones (https://www.dji.com/goapp). Should it really be legal for Apple to decide to remove that from their app store without some sort of justification? Shouldn't the barrier to doing so be reasonably high (ex intentional abuse, illegal behavior, etc)? Is it reasonable if someone purchases a device, but later the associated app is removed by Apple and they lose functionality that they paid for?
Re government regulation: In fact it is exactly what I do want. I want general open access, neutrality, and transparency laws that apply to both ISPs and closed marketplaces. I'd also like a law requiring that users be allowed to configure roots of trust in _all cases_ for devices that they legally own, but I'm not holding out hope for that one.
Re my ISP analogy not holding: Sure, Apple can't force consumers to purchase their devices. Neither can an ISP force you to purchase a house in a particular area. So what? It doesn't follow that either of them should be permitted to arbitrarily regulate how I engage with a third party. This is why I compared a mobile device to a house and a user to a resident in my analogy - in both cases it is costly and difficult for most consumers to change who they do business with.
Re Apple not caring what you or I think because we're small, they built the infra, they own the infra, they were upfront with their ToS, etc: I'm arguing that things need to be changed. They ought to be legally required to do business with you unless they can provide documented justification that includes evidence of serious abuse on your part. This is conceptually the same (to me at least) as requiring net neutrality and open access of all ISPs.
> I think my position can be succinctly summarized as mobile devices having become essential infrastructure.
For mobile phone service and mobile internet access, I think this is a reasonable position (though not everyone would agree with it).
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a specific infrastructure for distributing mobile apps, which Apple built and which they own. Apple does not prevent anyone from operating a mobile website and having customers connect to it. To argue that Apple's app store should be considered "essential infrastructure" is to argue that access to particular bells and whistles in mobile apps (whichever ones require a native app as opposed to a mobile website to function acceptably) is "essential infrastructure". I don't think that's a valid claim; it is much, much too strong.
> My impression is that your position is one of preventing over regulation and preserving a free marketplace.
My position is what I just said above: that the government should not be brought in to regulate something just because certain app developers aren't being allowed to distribute native apps through Apple's app store. That's not "essential infrastructure".
> I'm pointing out that, for example, Tesla's car app is expected by consumers to work with both Android and iOS.
And Apple is not going to ban Tesla's car app from its app store, because Tesla is a large enough company that Apple can't ignore them.
> It seems silly to me to suggest that if Apple terminated business with Tesla that Tesla should simply roll their own infrastructure and expect consumers to switch away from iOS.
Knowing Elon Musk, I think that's exactly what they would do. (Or, equivalently, they would figure out how to put whatever functionality they needed into a mobile website and build the infrastructure to make it work acceptably.) And I don't see why they couldn't, if they had to. But I also don't see that Apple would try it in the first place; see above.
> It doesn't follow that either of them should be permitted to arbitrarily regulate how I engage with a third party.
When Apple bans an app from the app store, as I've already said, they are not regulating a third party. They are terminating a business relationship between them and the app developer. An ISP does not have a business relationship with a website that they (hypothetically) decide to prevent their users from reaching.
Yes, Apple terminating a business relationship with an app developer affects that app developer's customers. But that's true of any business relationship. If your ISP decided to terminate your Internet service (say because you kept sending child porn in your emails), that would affect everyone who wants to connect with you over the Internet. But the ISP would not be terminating a business relationship with them; it would be terminating a business relationship with you.
You could argue that your ISP should not be allowed to terminate your Internet service because Internet service is now "essential infrastructure"; but, as I noted above, access to Apple's app store is not the same thing.
> They ought to be legally required to do business with you unless they can provide documented justification that includes evidence of serious abuse on your part.
I think having the government do this would do far more harm than good.
My impression is that your position is one of preventing over regulation and preserving a free marketplace. I generally agree, but think that it's essential to maintain the stability and openness of the market by preventing large players from abusing their market dominance. I can't see how allowing Apple (or anyone else) to install themselves as sole gatekeeper of their very large service and then make arbitrary and opaque decisions about who gets to participate in it is in any way a good idea. It seems easily abused and detrimental to the market as a whole - consumers and smaller businesses alike.
Responses to various points from both your comments below, but I suspect any differences in the above is likely to lead to differences in the below being largely irrelevant to each of us.
Re unrelated market segments: I'm pointing out that, for example, Tesla's car app is expected by consumers to work with both Android and iOS. I don't think anyone is arguing that Tesla and Apple are in competition (or even remotely related) though. It seems silly to me to suggest that if Apple terminated business with Tesla that Tesla should simply roll their own infrastructure and expect consumers to switch away from iOS. That's an absolutely enormous barrier to entry, and easily abused. DJI provides an app for their drones (https://www.dji.com/goapp). Should it really be legal for Apple to decide to remove that from their app store without some sort of justification? Shouldn't the barrier to doing so be reasonably high (ex intentional abuse, illegal behavior, etc)? Is it reasonable if someone purchases a device, but later the associated app is removed by Apple and they lose functionality that they paid for?
Re government regulation: In fact it is exactly what I do want. I want general open access, neutrality, and transparency laws that apply to both ISPs and closed marketplaces. I'd also like a law requiring that users be allowed to configure roots of trust in _all cases_ for devices that they legally own, but I'm not holding out hope for that one.
Re my ISP analogy not holding: Sure, Apple can't force consumers to purchase their devices. Neither can an ISP force you to purchase a house in a particular area. So what? It doesn't follow that either of them should be permitted to arbitrarily regulate how I engage with a third party. This is why I compared a mobile device to a house and a user to a resident in my analogy - in both cases it is costly and difficult for most consumers to change who they do business with.
Re Apple not caring what you or I think because we're small, they built the infra, they own the infra, they were upfront with their ToS, etc: I'm arguing that things need to be changed. They ought to be legally required to do business with you unless they can provide documented justification that includes evidence of serious abuse on your part. This is conceptually the same (to me at least) as requiring net neutrality and open access of all ISPs.