But do you even have the right to access that user? Is it a right or a privilege? I think that would have to be decided first.
You have a very nice way of discussing things like this. I appreciate that.
I don't know how to say this logically, but intuitively, I feel that the fact that Apple opened up the app store to 3rd party developers makes the difference here. If they wrote all the apps themselves, I'd have no issue with them. It would still be a monopoly, but it wouldn't be a market.
Instead, Apple opened up a monopolistic market, and it got big enough for me to start thinking that they overstepped what's good for overall competition in the economy.
What's interesting here also is the question of: when do we intervene? Should we have let Hitler just do his thing? His regime would have eventually run out of steam. It might have taken a couple hundred years, but his impact on the world would eventually have drifted off into insignificance. Same thing for North Korea, Rwanda, or any of dozens of other situations where we've had to make a judgement call.
Just like Jeff Bezos said about Amazon, Apple will eventually go out of business. Standard Oil would have, too. So too AT&T.
Where is that line?
In my view, Apple is bumping up against it. Maybe in yours, its not.
Microsoft certainly bumped up against it with Internet Explorer, and reaped the wrath of the government for a bit. They eventually won, but the government's action certainly made them change their business practices. I call that a good outcome.