Yes, it is about openness and competition. What I'm saying is that the current climate is over-valuing the App Store market when the real openness and competition should be happening on the open web.
I see this caused by the financial world's excitement for the app Store economy. This same "irrational exuberance" happened during the .com cycle.
Developers/entrepreneurs should be focused on the open web as the delivery mechanism which bypasses all app Store rules. This is freedom to me.
Regulators should be watching the "public space" of the internet and worry less about the "private space" of the app Store economy and platform.
The regulators should make it is simple to publish on port 80 and port 443. I think we have that. A five person start up should do everything they can to minimize the amount of regulated data they collect.
I would worry less how an abusive company might act and more on how to delivery a good experience with one's product.
How abusive can a big company be on the internet?(excluding ISPs). My point is that organic communities on the internet is where freedom happens. Anyone expecting to get freedom from a product in an app Store is mistaken. App stores can provide amazing convenience. Apple essentially built a global store that handled taxes and regulations seamlessly for it's developers. The process is so seamless everyone thinks it should be free.