Apple has locked me out of my developer account

My (current) point isn't about Apple banning individual consumers, but rather about Apple (or Google) banning companies from distributing via their infrastructure. From the perspective of the affected company, this is in fact roughly equivalent to an ISP blocking access to their website.

> But app developers can still reach customers in other ways.

Not in a commercially viable manner, at least in the US. That's my current view anyway, and you haven't (yet) convinced me that it's flawed.

> An ISP ban of a website means that website is literally off the Internet as far as all of that ISP's users are concerned.

And by analogy, an Apple ban of a publisher means that their app is literally blocked as far as all Apple device users are concerned. My original analogy holds.

> The website has no business relationship with the ISP the way app devs do with Apple.

Devs don't necessarily want to have a relationship with Apple, they're forced to in order to maintain a viable company (in some market segments, in the US). It is precisely this lack of choice that necessitates neutrality regulations of some sort. In fact, if an ISP were to charge website owners in order to reach their customers it would match the Apple app store model almost perfectly.

(Resident : User) :: (House : Device) :: (ISP : Apple) :: (Website : App) :: (DNS Record : Dev Account)

Your proposed hosting analogy is fatally flawed because an app developer can't switch distributors and still reach the (very significant, in the US) Apple device user subset. Apple is akin to an ISP, and blocking a developer account is equivalent to blocking any and all web properties owned by a particular individual.

It doesn't matter who "owns" the internet or a particular app store, or how the current state of affairs came to be. Any company possessing such unilateral control over effectively unrelated segments of the market is a completely unacceptable situation and needs to be remedied by lawmakers.

In the original article, Rambo is complaining that his dev account has been limited in some way. Anyway, how is that relevant when no one in this thread is contesting that the OP's account was (or was not) suspended/disabled in some way?

> they should be clear that that's what they're actually doing and offer at least a sentence or two as to why

I pretty much said the same, but given all the missing information, it might be a case where they can't or don't want to. As other comments have pointed out, Apple has covered themselves legally with their TOS explicitly stating accounts could be terminated without notice for violations. Other comments have also pointed out that Apple might be in a legal situation where they were advised to not communicate (blame the corporate lawyers).

> The argument that this just can't possibly scale is dubious

Well FussyZeus had a whole explanation for his/her opinion backed by his/her experience and a certain attitude towards the whole situation. Your only argument is that Amazon, Twitter, and FB do manage to give explanations. Yes, but not always, and Google that you don't mention is notorious for not giving explanations and not being able to speak to a human about it.

I have the feeling that this is not a minor violation and there is credible speculation the OP seems to have behaved in ways that might merit what happened. So I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that Apple can and should be more forthcoming in this case.

And here's the inconvenient truth: unless the affected company is large enough to make Apple pay attention, their perspective doesn't matter.

I get that it would be nice if Apple didn't do these things. It would be nice if Apple allowed every indie dev and every small dev company to build their dream app without having to jump through hoops and risk having their business shut down on Apple's whim. But Apple doesn't care what you or I think would be nice. They built their infrastructure and they own it. If they choose to manage it in a manner you don't like, they simply aren't going to care, and you have no right to insist that they care.

> Not in a commercially viable manner, at least in the US. That's my current view anyway, and you haven't (yet) convinced me that it's flawed.

I didn't say "commercially viable". Apple is under no obligation to make sure the business model you would like to have in a perfect world is commercially viable.

> My original analogy holds.

No, it doesn't, because Apple's ban of a publisher is a ban of another business that they have a business relationship with. The ban is basically saying that Apple doesn't want to have a business relationship with them any more. And no business has a right to insist that Apple have a business relationship with them.

If an ISP bans a website, they are "banning" a business that they have no relationship with. More precisely, they are restricting the actions of their customers in a way that impacts a third party (the website) with whom they have no relationship. In a sane world, ISPs would not have monopolies over the last mile Internet connection and so customers who wanted to get to website X and couldn't through one ISP would simply pick another (and ISPs who arbitrarily "banned" websites would end up going out of business because nobody would want to buy that kind of Internet access). But ISPs lobbied the government to get special monopoly privileges, and that means they gave up the right to arbitrarily restrict their customers' Internet access. That's a special circumstance that doesn't apply to other businesses like Apple.

> Devs don't necessarily want to have a relationship with Apple, they're forced to in order to maintain a viable company

No, they're "forced" to because they picked that particular area of business. But nobody forced them to pick that area of business. They chose to, knowing the risks involved. Nobody has a right to insist that their chosen business model must be viable.

> Apple is akin to an ISP

No, it isn't. Apple can't force people to buy its devices. ISPs can force people to get Internet access from them because they have government granted monopolies.

Um, what? How is "mobile app developers" an unrelated segment of the market from "mobile phone manufacturers"?

> is a completely unacceptable situation and needs to be remedied by lawmakers.

No, remedy by lawmakers is exactly what you do not want. Basically, the situation is that a bunch of businesses made bad business decisions--they built businesses that were critically dependent on Apple being nice to them, and Apple wasn't. Businesses that make bad business decisions are supposed to fail; getting lawmakers to shield them from failing is how you get bad businesses and badly served customers.

The correct response for people who want to develop Apple apps and can't because Apple has banned them is to either build their own infrastructure to compete with Apple's, as I said upthread, or to find some other line of business.