[mattmanser]

I find your position to be tenable at best, what is and is not an addictive food additive? What recreational drugs are and are not good for the public health? All these are arbitrary decisions too.

I doubt you would suggest the US should get rid of the FDA. It is not such a jump to conclude that if drug companies must be watched for practices which damage consumers, why not a retail firm? The line America has drawn for regulation is just as arbitrary as the one European countries do, Europe is just a bit more suspicious of laissez-faire capitalism than America.

And I highly doubt they are baby sitting this app because of quality.

[netcan]

First, I am not American and have no special feelings for their position. I'm not trying to prove a metaphysical point either.

To put all this in context, I was responding to a comment that could be paraphrased 'Most of us agree what Apple is doing sucks, European (Commission?) should make them do it differently. The only reasons not to are some hazy moral theories I don't believe in.' I was talking about some of the practical reasons not to, the costs. One of those is rule of law.

Food, medicine, narcotics, etc. all these regimes also require relatively arbitrary regulatory powers too. That is also not good for rule of law. We make tradeoffs. Purer, direct democracy for stronger institutions. Rule of law of regulations. Laws for liberty. Each of these has a cost. Sometimes it's worth it.

Maybe regulating the appstore is a good idea. I don't think so. I'm trying to argue that the costs typical to this kind of a decision are high hear while the gains are low, perhaps nonexistent.

BTW, I don't think that Thingie was being unreasonable either. Like he says, the current reality is that it is not that crucial to find the best way of getting iphone apps.