Is it though?

To extend your analogy, let's say you can go to the store and buy a hammer. One brand ("Granny Smith"), and only that brand, has these limitations and it's pretty well-known these limitations exist if you buy that hammer. Or, you can buy one of the other dozen or so brands of hammer, and you don't have that limitation.

But because the Granny Smith hammer is pretty and has slick marketing, half the hammer buyers get that brand of hammer, even though the other hammer buyers call them idiots for doing so.

Is this really a place where we need government intervention, when consumers are willingly making this choice?

If it got to the point where you couldn't realistically do any hammering without a Granny Smith hammer, then sure, it's pretty obvious action is needed. But right now, it's only a problem because half the buyers are happily choosing Granny Smith despite all the alternatives (which generally have more features and cost less). Even worse, they say they like these limitations, and don't want them removed!!!

They should absolutely get regulated, there is no good reason for Parkside batteries not to be compatible with Bosch tools, or Makita, or Ryobi or whatever else. They all have their slightly different battery interfaces, that don't have technical reasons to be different.

They only provide vendor lock-in, so that people who already have a Ryobi drill will also buy a Ryobi grass mower and a Ryobi trimmer, regardless of their actual individual merits, unless they want to also buy batteries (and chargers!) for each of their pieces of equipment.

This is bad for consumers, bad for competition and bad for the overall market. I hope this gets regulated in the future in the EU, but who knows.

The Granny Smith tools cost more than the others, and are sold in boutique shops by so-called "master craftsmen" who have never actually worked professionally with power tools. Yet somehow, half of tool buyers happily buy their tools, despite knowing they have to get batteries from the Granny Smith Stores and can't use any other tools' batteries. This is even touted as a feature(!), since it "protects" owners from "unsafe" 3rd-party batteries and chargers.

Is it correct for the government to step and and protect stupid consumers from themselves? If the government did this for everything that consumers buy, we might as well just have government ownership and operation of all companies, and that was tried before with disastrous results. So at what point should government just let people make bad decisions, as long as no actual fraud is being committed? And remember the safety aspect touted by Granny Smith: they claim that it's unsafe to use non-GS batteries in their tools, and that it's a burden on them to deal with warranty claims for GS tools harmed by bad non-GS batteries. (Remember, there are a LOT of users right here on HN who will cite this safety argument for iPhones.)

The problem with that hypothesis is that in reality they just wouldn't do that. Once a fragmented market based on vendor lock-in is established, every manufacturer is afraid to break it because the first that breaks it has the most to lose.

> Is it correct for the government to step and and protect stupid consumers from themselves?

Do consumers have an option for interoperability today? They don't.

> If the government did this for everything that consumers buy, we might as well just have government ownership and operation of all companies

That doesn't follow, plenty of things consumers buy don't have vendor lock-in, and plenty of things that do have vendor lock-in also have available options without lock-in. Other products even have vendor lock-in, without interoperable options, but where lock-in isn't an actual problem (say, blades for electric razors: sure they are not interoperable, but they are a minor expense and have actual technical reasons for not having a standard).

> So at what point should government just let people make bad decisions

At an arbitrary point that is chosen by the regulatory bodies taking into account many of the variables that affect the markets of consumer goods.

Huh? That's literally what the smartphone market is like now, though it got there a different way. There's two OSes: iOS and Android. There's a bunch of phone makers who sell Android-based phones, and they all can run apps from the Google Play store (or other Android app stores, or side-loaded .apk files).

If you want to argue that the power tool market can't get there from its current situation, that's fine, but it's completely irrelevant to the discussion here, which is about smartphones and not power tools. You're the one who brought up power tool batteries as an analogy here, and like all analogies, it's imperfect but can be useful.

>Do consumers have an option for interoperability today? They don't.

They can buy an Android phone of some kind and use any app from the places I mentioned above.

>say, blades for electric razors: sure they are not interoperable, but they are a minor expense and have actual technical reasons for not having a standard

Apple makes the exact same argument for their App Store.

>plenty of things consumers buy don't have vendor lock-in

There are many places where vendors have tried, but got shot down. Auto parts is one big example.

Yes, it affects all of us and positions Granny Smith for even more control over derived areas. For one, Apple are applying American morals to decisions about what kind of content is appropriate in apps.

> when consumers are willingly making this choice?

Are they, though? They're making the choice, but there's lots of factors, and this is hardly the most obvious one. So there's lots of little, day-to-day choices by individual consumers based on what looks cool, what can I afford, what has the best games - and these small chocies just happen to add up to big choice that total control of smartphones should be ceded to Apple.

> But right now, it's only a problem because half the buyers are happily choosing Granny Smith despite all the alternatives (which generally have more features and cost less).

In my country it's actually something like 80% - and it skews in a certain way so that many apps are iOS-only. Not the ones you can't live without, not yet, at least.

> Even worse, they say they like these limitations, and don't want them removed!!!

I know Apple are running a big fearmongering campaign, but to the best of my knowledge, all of the changes that the DMA enforce are opt-in. The only way it affects you if you don't want to opt-in is that it informs that you now have a choice.

This would only be true if Android did not exist.

But the reality is it’s not harmful at all.

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.

It's funny that Apple is condemned here for applying inside their own platform the exact same strategy the EU is applying inside its tech market.

> This should not come down to "consumer preference" - _especially_ not when the harms aren't obvious at the time of purchase.

"For your own safety" is how authoritarianism raises.

The EU is a regulatory body and a union of democratic sovereign states. There is no comparison to be had whatsoever with a multinational for-profit company.

I don't think you realize what it is to have zero control over your government, and to be represented by no one. Your statements are grossly hyperbolic and a misrepresentation of the (real) failings of our democracies.

The whole point of the current discussion is how little power you actually have over Apple and other companies as a consumer. You cannot actually "vote with your wallet" by not buying any smartphone or not mowing your grass, it doesn't work.

I don't know about you, but I've never owned an iPhone. Android phones have worked, and still work, great for me. You don't have to buy an iPhone to have a smartphone.

I have power over Apple by simply not buying their crap, which is exactly what I've done. If other people like you did this instead of expecting someone else to control the company you willingly shovel your money to, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Do you? We both don't have iPhones (actually, I do have one at work because it's required for some of the things we do, but that's another problem) and Apple still exists, and still locks in my less technically aware relatives which becomes my problem.

Using an Android phone isn't a solution to all problems anyway, since many bank or identity apps require a locked, unrooted phone, which basically means they only run on unsecure phones that might report whatever to their actual owners in the US, China or South Korea.

I lived both under a communist dictatorship and democracy. My actual vote (well, my parent's, I was too young to vote then) was wasted under both.

But every time I purchase a product I know that I act as natural selection in an ecosystem of companies which cannot exist unless their actions are (partially) aligned with my interests. It works.

i take your points well. and would also offer that you have a personal life experience which is fascinating to me given my upbringing in quintessential USA.

'voting with one's wallet' as a concept has more to do with the (English anyway) word for 'boycott.' a boycott, unlike governmental regulation, is something strictly reserved for private individuals to carry out. governments cannot legally boycott anything, at least that comes to mind. but they do have implicit (sometimes called 'plenary') authority to regulate the private market.

both, boycott (i.e. freedom of speech and to assemble, etc.) and lawful governmental regulation, are but of course myriad components of a healthy, functioning democracy.

nice exchanging ideas with you.

Wrong. You can vote for your local representatives who control the EU executive. You can vote for your EU member who control the EU parliament.

What you have zero of is knowledge of how the EU works, apparently.

And of course I did. None of the politicians I voted for won. Turns out proposing populist measures, like "be tough on those evil multinational corporations" is much more electable than saying uncomfortable truths like "EU is falling behind on tech - we need to lower taxation and reduce regulation if we want to have a fighting chance of catching up".

> What you have zero of is knowledge of how the EU works

Please teach me then. What you said so far ("vote") is not only well known but is also quite ineffective - if you know how EU works actually, not just apparently.

Start here: https://elections.europa.eu/en/

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home

You could highlight to them how you feel you have zero influence.

You see, here is how it worked in my country: populist parties share the power and easily crush competition. They get elected by promising populist measures: higher pensions, higher minimum income and a tougher stance on the only thing they can attack: foreign corporations, which are made to be the scapegoats - root of all evils.

Then in EU elections their list is filled with the most useless, moronic, deeply corrupted and easily controlled politicians. This is because the EU parliament is seen as a well paid, easy comfy job tailor made for politicians too stupid or too visibly corrupt to prepare the next election cycle at home.

Those are "my MEPs". The only people they listen to are the handlers from back home. The only interests they represent is that of the highest bribe.

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.

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.

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?

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.