They are different, but Apple still exercises a high degree of control over what&#x27;s in the App Store.  There&#x27;s no porn.  They restrict the programming languages you can use, and AFAIK you can&#x27;t make certain types of programming environments.<p>You could argue that they are nibbling around the edges, and &quot;most stuff you want&quot; is in the App Store.  But I still see it as a huge amount of control.<p>They also seem to auto-complete what&#x27;s typed into the Safari address bar, which heavily influences the sites you visit.  And they choose the default search provider.  Defaults matter.<p>My thesis doesn&#x27;t really rest on profit from advertising vs. devices.  I agree that they are different, but I&#x27;m just saying that these companies have a lot of power in the abstract sense.  True, some of that power could be more exchangeable for political power.  Maybe Facebook and Google are more powerful politically than Apple, just because they deal more directly with information.