[sinnoh]

really the entire concept of a 'store' has been bastardized by these companies (another thing we can thank apple for) and is a misdirect.

the locked down software platforms wherein users can't install anything on their own devices without the owning company's say-so is the artificial monopoly. they're trying to get away with adding things like device management now to weasel out of it but in reality these are artificially high barriers to entry for any competing software distribution services or 'stores'.

when Amazon can barely even get a foothold in a competing ecosystem with its own 'app store' you know it's anticompetitive and it's working.

[threeseed]

Amazon can build their own phones and run their own store. In fact they did.

It’s just that their products were terrible and consumers didn’t want them. And the barrier to building your own ecosystem really isn’t that high anymore. We have hundreds of Chinese companies doing this today.

[bduerst]

Agreed, and this is where some set of standardization is needed for antitrust law.

Store doesn't mean much. There needs to be a difference between hosting an online store that sells your own products and services, and hosting an online platform that sells your own things but also allows other businesses to sell on it as well.

The latter needs more guidelines on how the host ensures competition, especially when it starts to get market dominance and abuses control of the platform to promote it's own products.