By not allowing alternate app stores, yes.
If, however, you want to impose the support of other stores on Apple by the means of regulations, you're effectively supporting the use of the government's monopoly of force against a company that is building products that people are happy to pay a premium to buy products from (and therefore are perfectly fine with the app store).
There's a name for this: Crony Capitalism.
I mean, i thought everyone agreed across the political spectrum that what China is doing in Hong-kong is bad. Reading this thread, i stand corrected.
On the other hand, are you saying that because of your ideas on how the world should run that contract is invalid and that Apple should be forced to change it retroactively, despite the fact they are not causing harm to anyone?
China invading Hong Kong is an aggression, for sure, but so is the EU interference in the free market and private contracts under whatever justification.
Apple made its brand and has a loyal customer base due to the quality of the products it delivers, therefore it's providing what the market wants.
This brand of laissez-faire sentimentalism is very predictable, but it is neither here nor there.
> unless you believe that giving unfair advantages to Apple competitors is acceptable by any standards, and that this would lead to a more efficient market.
Given that Apple's control of its platform comes with forcing of 30% fees on its competitors (such as ProtonMail, the OP), it would be less giving advantages to other competitors, than refusing unfair advantages that Apple itself has exploited and enjoyed under the current state of affairs.
> Apple made its brand and has a loyal customer base due to the quality of the products it delivers, therefore it's providing what the market wants.
Then it should rest its laurels on the quality of its products and not on restrictive anti-competitive behavior levied upon its competitors. After all the App Store would be nothing without 3rd party developers, and the world in which Steve Jobs had chosen to never open up the platform to such developers would be a much barer one indeed.
Because only the worst developers believe they are more important than the consumer.
In fact, Apple charges more, so it makes it even more difficult to buy them than an Android phone -- which also has multiple app install options. Why not use that?
> If some big app owner like Facebook or AirBnb came out and said "We're only supporting Android now, so please switch phones to use our service" they'd just go out of business. That's the essence of monopolism.
I think that's just called bad decision making, which vendors are completely free to make. There are plenty of apps that are Android only, and I'm sure they fully realize their revenue will be less as a result. There are also plenty of third party game developers making exclusive titles for Playstation or Xbox all the time. They're roughly neck and neck outside of Japan, but in Japan, it's no contest, Playstation is completely dominant. Assuming we ignore Nintendo, would you then suggest that Sony has a monopoly on consoles there? One could claim that if you're a developer in Japan and you don't target Playstation in Japan, you're going to lose. But if the goal is maximum revenue ...that's just bad decision making. If the Xbox market in Japan just isn't coughing up dollars, how is that Sony's problem?
Rather than continuously trying to compare Apple to a monopoly, which it isn't, I think the more effective comparison would be with RAND and FRAND. I don't know what kind of legal hoops would need to be jumped through to make the legal justification work, but it seems like Apple has an essential technology (the App Store), and must be obligated to license it (arguably reflected via the fee it charges), but that is an extant example of government regulation where the fee could be legally managed.
Now, don't get me wrong, as a consumer I do want to _own_ my device and have the freedom to do anything with it, even if I never exercise that freedom. And as a consumer I use my right to vote with my wallet by never purchasing iPhones and explain my decision to anyone that cares to listen. But in no way does that mean that I think what Apple is doing is wrong or illegal nor do I think they should be forced to change their business model because some people think they can have the cake and eat it too.
Just because 2 bad actors exist doesn’t mean we can’t stop them.
So I am forced to use an iPhone. Regulation is necessary in Oligopolys.
You can, on the other hand, support businesses or communities that are.