Promising users that your platform is "open" when you create it and market it to consumers -- only to break those promises later -- is the reason why Google keeps being found guilty of antitrust violations in jurisdictions around the world.

Meanwhile, walled gardens remain perfectly legal, unless you explicitly change the law.

Look at Microsoft, which created and marketed Xbox as a walled garden with no legal repercussions in the decades since.

However, Microsoft created Windows as an open platform, and then used anticompetitive tactics to retain control (just as Google did) and was found just as guilty as Google in the courts.

When Apple created iOS it was a closed platform. When they added the ability to create third party native apps they were clear that the platform would be a walled garden.

> When Apple created iOS it was a closed platform. When they added the ability to create third party native apps they were clear that the platform would be a walled garden.

It clearly was not a closed platform in the way that Apple believed. It never should have been closed. I own my devices, so I get to decide what they run. It’s my electricity driving the chips, so I decide which bits get flipped. Simple as.

I do hear you, I just don’t know if I have the same perception of the facts on the ground. Google and Apple should be compelled to support users’ decisions about whether to defer to the corporate overlords, or not.

> I own my devices, so I get to decide what they run.

That's not how the law works.

As long as the device creator is absolutely clear to consumers that choosing their platform means that consumers will be buying into a walled garden, it's perfectly legal.

The only way to change that is to change the law, as the EU did.

I think we’re arguing past each other. I agree that a law may be needed to compel them to acknowledge rights that users already have in practice.

A right that can’t be exercised is a wrong.

Nobody forces users to buy into a walled garden platform. If you make that choice, you voluntarily gave up the ability to run any software you like.

You do have the right to choose an open platform instead.

Hopefully from a vendor that doesn't break its promises.

The interoperability exemption to the DMCA allows users to legally hack their devices to do whatever the user(s) need or want for accessibility purposes.

I guess I should say that folks have those rights in principle, but not in practice.

That's how the US courts have ruled.

How can we make this issue important enough to be addressed by Congress? If it doesn’t reach the Supreme Court as a challenge or test case, that may be our only avenue of redress.

I appreciate you for making a point of bringing this up. I care as you do and want better for computing and computer users.

I don't think that the American Congress is likely to side against donors and make walled gardens illegal any time soon.

The judge who ruled in Epic vs Apple did mention in the ruling that Epic could have had more success if they had focused on the size of the 30% cut instead of arguing that Apple could not take a cut from the App Store at all.