I’m all for people convincing their governments to enact legislation in the public interest. I think there are huge misunderstandings with the current case, however:
1. People are suggesting there is no need for new legislation, that current antitrust law covers Apple’s behavior. I think this is, politely, wishful thinking.
2. People really underestimate the consequences of government intervention in the form of a consent decree or industrial regulations. They can be very good or very bad, and it usually takes many years of tinkering to figure it out.
Like: once you regulate the app stores, you’ve effectively enshrined them as a state-sponsored enterprise for a generation or longer. The %cut might get lowered, but now adjusting it is like fighting over taxes, and is wrapped up in all the other ideological problems of the day.
3. People underestimate the unintended consequences of breakups or forced arrangements.
Say the stores are forced to be spun out of their parents. How do we know this will lead to a lowered cut%? If you regulate that cut, what does the company get in return? Indentured servitude isn’t generally looked upon with favor. What about mergers and acquisitions, like, could the spun out google and Apple stores eventually merge, creating an actual monopoly? If not, why not, and for how long? Now we are back to enshrining a business as a state-sponsored enterprise.
Of course I’m sure that some kind of regulatory arrangement in the public interest could be dreamt up, but let’s remember that the AT&T split took 8 years to sort out into a consent decree. Microsoft’s trial and second consent decree took 3 years - finalized in 2001. If the antitrust law isn’t enough to tackle Apple and Google (and I doubt it is), crafting the legislation alone could take up to 5 years or maybe longer. The US communications act took 60 years to get revisited. Are we so sure there’s not some kind of alternative on the horizon that will disrupt Apple and Google in the next 10 years? The web browser disrupted Microsoft once, maybe some successor with WASM and other goodies will make native apps a moot point? Doesn’t seem that way now but 10 years is a long time.
This is the trouble with antitrust law or new industrial regulatory law: unintended consequences, or being too late to be effective. The better way is to promote entrepreneurs to topple this regime. It’ll take 10-15 years either way, but I think the latter approach has the chance of a better overall consumer experience.