[skc]

Is it still milking if customers are paying willingly?

[sgmoore]

Yes. I guess you have never been near a dairy farm at milking time and seen the cows queue up, or hear the noise they make if they are not milked.

[theplumber]

Thank you! You've just made my day!

[theplumber]

Yea, just like Intel has been milking existing customers. For monopolistic companies milking is their main business.

[ibn_khaldun]

That depends on what you consider “willingly” to mean in this matter.

[mynameisvlad]

Is Apple holding a gun to every person’s head saying “pay for Apple One or else”?

[stale2002]

What they are doing is using anti-competitive practices, that go against the purpose of anti-trust laws and pro-competition laws.

[mynameisvlad]

How, exactly? Apple One is a subscription like any other. People can choose to get it or not.

[stale2002]

Through the process of using dominant market power, to anti-competitively harm competitors in various industries.

The most common one, that is in the news, is the App Store situation, where literal laws are being passed to ban Apple's behavior.

But it also applies to other parts of their business, such as ads. There could be a push to pass laws to make Apple's behavior illegal in those spaces as well.

[mynameisvlad]

This comment thread- and in fact this entire post- is about services, and milking users via services.

While certainly true, I don't see how any of that is relevant in the context of this thread.