Hacker News Reader

So the general rule is that if the companies holds some kind of user lock in they now must accept all legal users. Since a hosting company has no such lock in and moving to another one lets you reach exactly the same audience then they are safe.

What if the service is more expensive? What if it has poor service quality? What if it makes it hard to find because your're unpopular? Can you easily define answers to these everyone can follow for more than just a single business example of hosting? If you can does everyone agree it's fair enough? This is the debate, not whether you think hosting can have an enforceable set of rules.

Which is pretty much where anticompetitive laws are in the U.S. in terms of hurting the consumer.

The fringe cases I would worry about are for tiny niche markets where there is only one supplier, or regulatory monopolies (e.g. healthcare networks).

> Apple refusing to list an app on the app store, since no else can do so

There are other app stores. Apple just doesn't support using them in their OS.

A much better example would be the ability to extend MobileSafari - Apple can and does do this (e.g. readability mode), but nobody else is allowed to (e.g. Instapaper). You can't choose a different default browser on iOS. There's a fine line between "not supported" and "anticompetitive".

That's a good one. Expanding on the banking one. It would be one thing if Wells Fargo wouldn't do business with you. Is another that they flag your ChexSystems Report so you can't open an account anywhere else.