The argument against an app store being controlled by a private entity is to me similar to that of other infrastructure, like broadband, roads, utilities, access to the market itself, etc. It should be available to everyone at self-cost or less. Major and common infrastructure must abide under special rules.
How in the world is an App Store infrastructure? It’s a proprietary platform. We have the Web as the free open platform, anyone can use any device to visit any web site. The App Store is a premium alternative.
Remember the fight for net neutrality? Well a lot of the infrastructure that makes up the internet is owned by private companies. e.g. Comcast, Verizon.
If Comcast (Google) and Verizon (Apple) both charged 30% markup on anything you bought on Amazon, would you think that's reasonable? Without them, you wouldn't be able to purchase anything at all, of course!
Electric, water utilities are private companies.
There will likely be a legal framework that develops to define a threshold and definition for when something constitutes a "platform" with sufficient market size such that competition within the platform be allowed.
Fundamentally I think it comes down to monopoly. If Comcast is the only way to get internet and they gouge me on price that’s bad.
The App Store is a more premium alternative to the Web. It’ll never be a monopoly — every iPhone comes loaded with Safari for alternative ways to engage with customers.
Well, if they gouge you, you can move to a different neighborhood (switch to android).
Pretty evident when you go through the thought experiment that ecosystems/platforms, with high costs of switching, are a new form of monopoly (at sufficient scale)
I mean you're picking something that has a massive amount of regulation on it to compare? What can be sold, prices, taxes, what customers you can or can not deny service to, legal operating hours, and more. The list goes on and on if the app store had 1/100th the regulations 7/11 has it would look vastly different.
