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Comment by dkjaudyeqooe | Hacker News Reader

> EU's attempted total control of all aspects of the tech platforms is harmful to consumers in a way that is not at all obvious, especially not to the less economically literate.

Who is economically illiterate here exactly? If I buy an iPhone, who owns it? Me, or Apple? According to you, it's Apple. Because they own the "platform" they get to decide what software you can run on it. No option to opt out.

Apple denying user choice for their own interest, on user owned hardware, is so obviously anti-consumer that only an ideologue would deny it.

> "For your own safety" is how authoritarianism raises.

Do you mean how Apple denys user freedom "for their own safety", literally?

Dictatorship from an unelected, self appointed corporation is actual authoritarianism.

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It's not a dictatorship, though: you're free to buy an Android phone like me. Just like you're free to buy a shirt from Uniqlo or H&M or wherever instead of Louis Vuitton. Microsoft has something much, much closer to a dictatorship, but I haven't seen much action on regulating them; the only thing that finally reigned them in (a little) was the move to web apps.

Yes so what happens when Uniqlo or H&M starts dictating which items you can wear together or on what days you can wear them?

You're entirely missing the point. Tech companies don't get to dictate what we can do with their products. I don't know why that is so hard to understand. You think that going to a competitor is the answer but the competitor is doing the same thing and so would every company over time because it gives the companies so much power and profit, at the cost to user freedom. This is particularly dangerous in a market that is basically an oligopoly.

The "free market" is great but it doesn't solve every problem or abuse. Users and customers have rights that need to be protected. Why you thing giving up your natural rights to corporations is a good idea I'll never know.

> what happens when Uniqlo or H&M starts dictating

You simply switch to a producer with more acceptable terms or one that doesn't dictate at all. Unless the competition was curtailed through excessive regulation, of course.

Why is it so hard to understand how the free market works and so hard to accept that different people can make different choice from you and that is ok because you it doesn't impede on your right to make your choices?

Why this desperation to impose your choices on other people?

>Yes so what happens when Uniqlo or H&M starts dictating which items you can wear together or on what days you can wear them?

You go find a new clothing store.

>You're entirely missing the point. Tech companies don't get to dictate what we can do with their products.

No, I'm not, and yes, sometimes they do, if you agree to it. Lots of enterprise vendors dictate how their customers can use their products.

>You think that going to a competitor is the answer but the competitor is doing the same thing and so would every company over time

No, they aren't doing the same thing. I can use other app stores (or side-loaded apps) on Android right now. Why is this SO hard for you to understand? No, there's no evidence this is going to change. If it does, then you have a very good reason for government to step in and force changes.

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