than a post which is prefaced with some tedious description burnishing your credentials as a "Musk-skeptic". It's the modern version of "I'm not racist or anything, but...".

Any sort of public accommodation law represents a tradeoff between protecting the freedoms of the business owner vs. the freedom of the customer. The courts have to determine what is the greater evil. Just because there are some situations where the business can and should be forced to accommodate customers doesn't mean that in ALL situations that is justified. I really doubt the courts are going to see "allowing the right to manufacture lies to foment violent insurrection" as a justifiable violation of the freedom of the business. There is pretty strong case law that the 'civil liberties' does not include the freedom to break laws.

> Sure you can. Your TV can be augmented with an inexpensive device like a Roku or a Raspberry Pi that gives you different options. It's a fixed asset, so the addition of such a device doesn't meaningfully affect usability. Neither of those things is true for a mobile device.

I can VNC from my iPad to a Raspberry PI that can run any web browser you want. Does that solve your problem? or do you have more carefully crafted rules that somehow specifically target Apple without tripping over dozens of other companies that basically do the same thing?

A web browser is clearly a large security target since it runs 3rd party code downloaded from the internet--so it makes perfect sense that Apple would want to narrow that attack surface as much as possible. Maybe security is less important to you than "freedom" and so perhaps Android is a better choice for you.

and I'm not allowed to change that browser. Is Sony being anti-competitive?

MS got into trouble because they had a dominant market position in personal computers (>90% at the time). Apple has 50% of the smartphone market in the US and lower outside the US.

Note: that as of IOS 14 Apple allows you to change the default browser on iOS, but still requires it to be WebKit-based. Presumably that's a security thing because Apple obviously doesn't make any money off of some other browser using the WebKit source.

iPhones are totally fine wrt your proposed law because they allow unrestricted Web Apps right now (and always have). You would have to modify your law to require the Manufacturer to provide a way of running truly unrestricted SW in a manner comparable to how the Manufacturer's own SW is run. I that point your proposed law would require car manufacturers to enable end users to load alternative self-driving code into their cars, it would enable end users to disable the SW protocols built into all manner of computer controlled devices.

It's really hard to write laws like this that do not create tons of unintended consequences. It comes down to this, you want to outlaw Apple's business model because you don't like Apple. There's nothing in Apple's business model that isn't also well represented in many other industries--so it's going to be hard for you to punish Apple without a lot of collateral damage.

A better alternative is for you to just buy a Samsung phone and stop caring so much that other people made a different choice.

SmartTVs have a 'marketplace' for applications, as do video game consoles. Cell phone vendors have for years had 'marketplace' where you could pay to download ringtones and whatnot. In all cases the marketplace is completely controlled by the manufacturer.

Yes MSFT said "people can just buy a Mac, instead"--but the courts said that with >90% of the market clearly the market had decided that wasn't an option. If it was 50/50 then the courts would have made a different call.

You are just wrong, dude.

Correcting this--arguably Apple has a duopoly with Google--but clearly they are not conspiring with each-other to restrict customer choice, because one company allows side-loading and the other doesn't. Customers have a clear choice, and about 50% (in the US) choose each. That is the definition of a perfectly functional capitalist market.

The only thing here is that some people on the Android side don't think the Apple side should exist--just like some people who own Chevy's don't think that Fords should exist.

> Monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies are largely indistinguishable

but this is not any kind of opoly--not by any definition that's ever been used before in US antitrust law. Wishing doesn't make it so.

> I wish folks would stop using the word "monopoly". It makes it easier for folks like saloomy to derail the argument by saying that more than one company makes phones. Use the words "antitrust law violation" or similar. You don't have to be a monopoly to run afoul of antitrust laws.

The only other situation I can think of is when you conspire with other companies to restrict competition. Are you claiming that Apple is conspiring with Google to restrict competition in the smartphone market?

So I can take my Playstation games and then play them on an Xbox? Thanks for letting me know--that's awesome.

The US certainly hasn't decided that. I'm not up-to-date on the EU rulings, but I really doubt they have either. Most likely you just don't understand how the law works. Here's a hint--it doesn't exist to punish the companies you dislike.

The vast majority of consumer products that contain a microprocessor do not allow the user to modify the software that runs on that microprocessor. Look around at all the microprocessors you use on a daily basis. Your set-top box, your television, your refrigerator, your DVD player, your car's infotainment system, etc., etc. Apple is not the exception here--PCs are the exception, Android devices are the exception. There's no legal basis (in the US) for requiring a manufacturer to enable end users to run whatever SW they want on all consumer devices. None.

Microsoft didn't run afoul of antitrust regulators because there's some law somewhere that says users have the Stallman-granted right to run whatever SW they want on whatever CPUs they own. They ran into problems with antitrust because they had a de facto monopoly on operating systems (well over 90% of PCs at the time) and used that monopoly to stifle competition for applications. Apple has (give or take) 50% of the smartphone market.

If users get fed up with them then the users can pretty easily flee to Android. It's that simple. If Apple had 90% of the smartphone market, then it would be a different story.

Maybe someday a different law will be passed--but that's a tricky law to write if you somehow want to target Apple but exclude all the hundreds of other 'appliances' that disallow sideloading.

I can't sideload apps on the Ford infotainment system. Is that a monopoly? Should we go grab some pitchforks?

They won't let me change the SW on my GE microwave. I also can't sideload apps on the infotainment system of a Ford or Chevy (or any other car). Does that mean that each of those manufacturers is a monopoly?

Have you considered that perhaps you have no idea what a monopoly is, as defined by antitrust law? Monopoly has a specific meaning in US antitrust law, and Apple is nowhere near meeting that definition. It is completely irrelevant legally that you just don't like how Apple runs their business. Just buy an Android.

I'm a computer engineer who works on custom chip design. I'm not sure why that matters.

I don't have an Elon Musk poster on my wall--but I also don't dislike him just because other people like him 'too much'. And I don't care about his behavior more than I do anyone else's.

And neither do you--not really. You have a childish little image in your head of what a "tech visionary" should look like and act like (I'm just guessing here, sort of a cross between Richard Feynman and Steve Wozniak) which is coincidentally how you see yourself. And Elon Musk is not that, at all. That was his major offense.