Dozens of U.S. states say Apple stifles competition, back Epic
Apple controls 50+% of modern American consumer computing. They tax it heavily. They scrutinize every program that wants to run on it, adding undue and unfair process, stress, and burden. They don't allow browsers other than artificially limited Safari. No runtimes. No auto updates outside of their control.<p>Recent changes to tracking and ads sent billion dollar ripples through the industry, forcing Facebook to seek a new business model. Even if you hate ads, the scale of this force is a sure sign of a monopoly. And of course Apple is free to monopolize and take advantage of this data for their own purpose and profit.<p>Apple never lets you form a business relationship with your customer. You'll have to use sign in with Apple, throwaway emails, Apple payments, subscriptions, etc. Customers are on loan, a grace from Apple, and you can be cut off anytime. Solid footing for any startup.<p>Apple loves to clone app ideas, remove APIs, etc. There are countless stories of small app devs going out of business thanks to the platform they built upon.<p>Apple is now becoming a payments company. Soon they'll own physical space and both sides of the relationship there too.<p>They're also a movie studio, potential automaker, and gaming company.<p>Companies shouldn't be able to get this big <i>and</i> control every aspect, every interface. Not of 50+% of American digital activity. The Internet is not Apple, and yet for many people, it is.<p>I'm scared of Apple. They can do my business in on a whim. Yours too.<p>We should ask for better regulation to support smaller business and innovation. We shouldn't have to run our ideas by Apple. We shouldn't have to pay them for providing no service or service we didn't ask for.