[lozenge]

The difference is taxes are set and disbursed democratically. Apple taxes are whatever they want them to be and are disbursed according to their board.

Heck they could introduce a tax on Amazon deliveries when Amazon is installed through the Apple App Store and nobody would be able to do anything about it. Except the EU that is.

[gretch]

> nobody would be able to do anything about it

Just don’t use an iPhone. And Amazon - just don’t put an app on the iOS store.

I mean it really is that simple. If customers actually cared about any of this stuff they would just switch. If there was enough demand another competitor would emerge (windows phone, black berry, foss)

[lxgr]

If "just don't buy at the monopoly" would work, we wouldn't need antitrust regulation.

[gretch]

So your thesis is that it doesn't work.

We are all enslaved to keep buying iPhones and have no free choice?

Or is it that even if no one bought an iPhone, Apple as a company would be able to keep it's market position?

This is why Apple keeps winning in the court cases, because the argument as you just presented it lacks any kind of rigor.

[seec]

There is only one other choice and for the first 5 years of the iPhone this choice was less competitive. Stop pretending things like that happen in a second and stop pretending every user can make the effort to switch after investing so much (money, time) on a particular platform. You also need to understand that for many, changing phones (or even tech in general) is something that happens only when it truly becomes necessary and this is every 3 to 5 years at best. You can't pretend that telling people to go buy a new hundreds of euros device just to fix an issue created by a corporation greediness is a realistic solution. It's not even something that someone who isn't into tech could realistically foresee before making their purchasing decision, pretending otherwise is bonkers.

You are just as disingenuous as Apple is and it is sad that you are defending the greed of a trillion dollar corp.

That being said, considering their behavior I'm pretty sure Apple has lost the good will of quite a few people, that are indirectly influential on the purchase of many tech devices of their social circle.

I am personally an Apple customer since the first iPod (was a teenager back then) and lots of Mac's plus many iPhones including the first but now I am pretty sure that my next smartphone will definitely not be an iPhone. Not that hard decision considering the insane pricing on Apple Silicon Macs (RAM/SSD) I had already started using my Mac less and my PC a lot more. And I make sure to avoid recommending anything Apple to anyone and actively discourage any purchase from them. I'm pretty sure I am not the only one doing that and I am pretty sure that Apple will feel this after a while...