[bogwog]

> You are perfectly free to develop apps and sell them elsewhere.

Yeah, you just lose access to a giant chunk of the market and severely limit your growth potential.

The entire industry with its millions of jobs and immeasurable value to society is two stores owned by two companies. That needs to be regulated.

[supernova87a]

Well, your conclusion that "this needs to be regulated" is highly debatable as a matter of public policy. Clearly I disagree. "Inhibited growth potential", especially in the pursuit of developing apps for iPhone, certainly doesn't fall on the side of being a fundamental right that people are being deprived of. I personally exercise a bit more restraint in saying that things call for government intervention.

[bogwog]

> doesn't fall on the side of being a fundamental right that people are being deprived of

What does that have to do with this? Anti-trust laws are to protect competitive forces in the market, not human rights.

Allowing these companies to have limitless control over millions of jobs with no regulation whatsoever gives us the crappy situation we have today. Someone could have their developer account terminated by accident/laziness, and then that person's entire livelihood is destroyed and they're left with no recourse because Apple/Google can't be bothered to even answer the phone. The Play store is an endless sea of malware, adware, and spyware, and any attempt at making a competitive marketplace is hopeless and instantly attacked by Google (remember Fortnite installer fiasco?). There's so much anti-competitive and clearly harmful (for developers and consumers) bullshit going on in these two stores every day that it's ridiculous that there still is not any strong regulatory action against them.

> I personally exercise a bit more restraint in saying that things call for government intervention.

Good for you. I heard that a lot in college. People who just took an economics class for the first time felt compelled to "pick a side", and everyone always picked that same side as you (me too). Yet that decision is made so so far detached from any real life problems or data that it's effectively arbitrary. If you feel that this characterization doesn't apply to you, then please contribute to the discussion with some actual substantive arguments and not hand-wavy virtue signaling.

[supernova87a]

Your arguments are no more substantive or backed by hard facts than mine. I could quote a multitude of benefits of not stepping in to regulate such markets just as you quote a case (actually, one rare case that made the headlines) of someone whose user account was affected by clearly not-the-most-innocent circumstances. So who's to win? That's why there are courts and policymakers. Glad it's not just up to your (or my) hypothetical victims.