[Jach]

> Imagine the outcry if Chevy could force you to only buy tires or gas for your Malibu from their store. Or if Mattel could force you to only buy outfits for your kid's Barbie doll from their store. Or if Dell could force you to only buy software for your laptop from their store.

Or if Apple could "force" you to only upgrade/fix your laptop at their store? Or if they could "force" you to develop iPhone apps on a Mac? Or if Tesla could "force" you to only buy a replacement battery from them?

I can't imagine any of these companies "forcing" these things, however, unless they're colluding with the government to make alternatives illegal, and then regulations aren't going to help anyway. They can make things inconvenient, which is quite different, and the market has a history of customers going to the competition when the inconvenience factor is high enough. Why invoke legislation at all, especially when the market under consideration is already competitive, which it is with smartphones? (If competition is stagnant and it's a difficult market to enter, then perhaps you have an argument to use government power to remove barriers to entry (often caused by the government) or to level the playing field or to provide incentives to make the market easier to enter.)

[guessWhy]

The expectation that customers should act in a way to basically create the conditions for a perfectly free market is misguided. Not invoking legislation just makes things painful for everyone. Sure, I can switch to Android - but the cost of buying everything again is rather high. Tomorrow I might have to switch back for similar political reasons.