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Comment by jayyhu | Hacker News Reader

I think Apple's action here provides a good case for breaking up platforms. If the App Store were decoupled from the main hardware-making and hardware-selling part of Apple, then there wouldn't be a conflict of interest between providing a neutral app-selling platform and retaining access to foreign markets.

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I don't think I see how merely separating the App Store from the hardware division provides that benefit, unless you're meaning something different than the way I'm reading it (that is, just making the App Store the responsibility of a separate App Store Company but changing nothing else).

Allowing iOS to sideload apps would be a more direct cure for this, because Apple's decisions about what belongs in the App Store wouldn't necessarily translate to decisions about what belongs on the platform. That would solve a fair number of problems for other developers, actually -- and in the long run would probably benefit Apple, too, by virtue of improving the overall health of the iPhone/iPad platform.

Right now, it seems that Apple has a lot to lose if the CCP were to suddenly cut off access to China -- both in terms of supply chain and in terms of market access. With an independent App Store, the CCP would have less leverage over the platform, since as a services-only company, it would be far less dependent on China. (In this scenario however, the Apple hardware division as a separate entity will still be very beholden to the whims of the CCP as they still depend on China for its supply chain and market access.)

If you look at Google right now, their Play Store still has the app available, mostly I believe, because the CCP has little or no leverage over Google to force their hand.

I do agree, tho that allowing side loading apps would also sidestep this issue altogether.

Yeah I’m completely fine with the government coming in and upending the App Store model.

Something like the "browser choice" that the EU forced Microsoft to implement for a while would do the trick. During initial iOS setup you'd have to choose which app store to use (from the currently most popular choices).

The law suit that resulted in "browser choice" started in 1993 and "browser choice" was started 2010, so this may happen "soon".

What platform is big enough to break up the big platforms?

The United States Federal Trade Commission.

Mhm. And shouldn’t they, then, be broken up as well?

Which monopoly breaks up the monopoly upbreakers?

Broken up into what? It's a government agency that already has a narrow scope of operation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission

Difference is that FTC's mission is to serve the people, and they are appointed through a democratic process.

In this scenario, I was thinking the federal government either through legislation, or executive action.

However, I'm not trying to push any political agenda, I just thought it was interesting that this was a good example of tech platforms being too powerful.

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