Right - we currently have a quasi duopoly which frankly won’t last a decade if people are willing to compete with it. Both companies are showing signs of ossification.
If governments get involved, we’ll have a government monopoly and government regulated software sales forever.
That obviously depends on which governments and what the governments do.
A US antitrust ruling that Apple can't constrain the user from installing apps from competing stores while Apple is still selling the device and not loading it up with crapware by default is very different than a requirement from China or India to install the government's store as root on everybody's phone from the factory.
The difference being that you choose which stores you trust instead of having them imposed on you against your will.
As soon as Apple is constrained, everyone else who can impose requirements will do so.
This idea about choosing which stores you trust, is a complete fantasy. Even in the most free market of countries, you’ll end up with a small set of corporations you don’t trust as he only viable stores.
> As soon as Apple is constrained, everyone else who can impose requirements will do so.
But that's precisely where the distinction matters -- there can be a hundred stores with onerous requirements, but if there is nothing requiring you to use any of them, you don't.
It's obviously a problem if you're required to use a specific store instead of the one you want to, but that's the problem today -- it's the thing requiring them to allow anyone to open a store would address. If Apple is the only store on your device and the government pressures Apple to reject an app you want, you can't get it. If anyone can open a store and the government pressures Apple to reject an app you want, you get it from a store that government can't pressure, or side load it.
Allowing someone to use another store and forcing them to use it are independent actions.
> Even in the most free market of countries, you’ll end up with a small set of corporations you don’t trust as he only viable stores.
How does that make any logical sense? We already see on Android that there exist stores operated by trustworthy entities, like F-Droid. Opening up to other stores wouldn't cause Apple's store to cease to exist, if you trust them. And if you don't then having alternatives available still wouldn't be any worse than the status quo.
Would a non-zero number of people use the store? Of course. But voluntarily, and with the realistic option not to, which isn't tied to their choice of hardware or operating system.
And enough people wouldn't that Facebook would still feel a lot of pressure to have their app in Apple's store under Apple's rules, or at least some store and some set of rules that the users actually trust.
If governments get involved, we’ll have a government monopoly and government regulated software sales forever.