[web_chops]

Considering the fact that only legitimate way to get an app on the device is through app store, its more like your ISP demanding a cut from developers based on different features in web applications. ISPs are reduced to dumb pipes. It's time app stores go the same route.

[rbarooah]

In the days before the consumer internet, there were online services like Compuserve, Prodigy, and AOL. They did demand a cut from developers based on different features they provided.

They were driven out of business through competition from the open internet.

If the current situation is analogous, then over time we can expect open app stores to drive the closed ones out of business. No need to involve the government.

[fpgeek]

Let's suppose that one of those online services had been owned by an unrestrained, pre-breakup AT&T (as would have been the case without the government intervention see as unnecessary).

Who here thinks that the open Internet would still have obviously and inevitably won?

[rbarooah]

What exactly are you comparing to an unrestrained, pre-breakup AT&T? I'm not aware of any modern equivalent.