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Comment by dwallin | Hacker News Reader

> You create a device, and all the dev tools around it, should a government be able to force you to give it away and support people using it for free?

This is an overly broad straw man argument because no one is trying to force Apple to give away iPhones. And yes, the government should be able to force you make major concessions, especially if your device becomes integral to the daily lives of half the citizens of said government.

Apple is selling these devices at a significant profit to end users. The primary purpose of the app store for Apple is to provide value to those consumers, so they continue to buy iPhones. Even if the EU decided tomorrow to confiscate all profits Apple makes from the app store in perpetuity Apple would continue to offer the App Store.

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you're the one making a strawman from my argument. I obviously did not imply Apple giving away iOS devices. I was talking about forcing Apple to support a 3rd party developer ecosystem, providing the tools to develop for that ecosystem and eating the costs.

And even then, it is not much different from forcing them to give away iPhones. So what, producing iPhones has a cost so giving them away is "obviously" not tenable, but making tools to develop for it has no cost? Forcing a security model where they have to be ready for "anything, anytime" instead of having a gate where they check things right at the gate has no cost? Especially when if their security fails, they will be the ones to be held responsible?

the rest of the things you say you support is a sure-fire way to make sure no company would risk anything to make devices / inventions so valuable that they become an integral part of your lives. at least not in your jurisdiction.

>the rest of the things you say you support is a sure-fire way to make sure no company would risk anything to make devices / inventions so valuable that they become an integral part of your lives.

yeah, sounds better than this future where they embrace, extend, and extinguish with the mindshare gained before pulling wool over the customer's eyes.

And this isn't new. This is the entire reason behind anti-trust. Because it's not in the government's best interest to allow Microsoft to push out other browsers. Post-innovation runs down a road to greed and corruption, which stifles future innovation for current convinience. It's never worth it.

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