Well, Google has marketed Android as an open source operating system (AOSP) and openness about the system [1] and encouraged manufacturers and developers to build on it based on the premise of openness and of course being "free". People advocated for Android because it was open source compared to other alternatives. But with this change they are simply ending that openness. People that have developed F-Droid and other alternative stores have contributed to the platform value (such as not being able to de-google their phone), the same goes for many other developers who have spent countless of hours developing for Android.

To say they don't owe you nothing seems like a betrayal on the promise that Android was an open platform (and open source).

> You are free to not use their products or start a company to compete

That's not an option as you are making it out to be. For a user switching means buying a new phone, repurchasing apps (if you bought) and maybe apps won't be even available to the new system, for developers that means all their knowledge about the system gone. Building a mobile operating system requires millions if not billions of dollars, years of work and convincing developers and businesses (hardware makers) to use your operating system. The barrier to enter is so high that telling people to just compete with Google is not a realistic solution.

[1] https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/around-the-gl...

Maybe "intelectual property" is really imaginary property given how the same big companies just gobble data from other people and companies wothout permission to feed their AI models (Facebook with books, recently NVIDIA with milions of videos from Youtube).

I guess they would not due that if they really believed some questionable synthetic construct like "intelectual property" really existed ?

Party A does not owe Party B the right to sell in Party A:s legal area.

Party B is allowed to choose not to sell in EU. If you wanna sell in EU you have to comply with EU rules. If you wanna sell in US you have to comply with US laws. That simple.

That is not how the European Union works. One of the core goals of the EU is to guarantee the European single market. One of the core principles of the single market is the Freedom to establish and provide services [1]. The Apple/Google duopoly have effectively created a market within the single market where the core principles of the single market do not apply anymore.

Tech has a strong tendency to favor outcomes with only a handful large players that make competition impossible due to network effects, etc., distorting the market. The Digital Markets Act was made to address this problem.

IANAL, but Google's Android changes seem like a fairly clear violation of the DMA.

This is typically hard for people from the US to grasp (I saw that you are not originally from the US though). In Europe, capitalism is not the end goal, the goal of capitalism is to serve the people and if that fails, it needs to be regulated.

---

As an aside, the lengths people go to defend a company with $402.836B yearly revenue :).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_single_market#Four_fr...

Are we still talking about massive companies with power to arbitrarily decide how billions of people use the personal computers they bought? Who's doing the feeling? Why would we presume all of their conduct to be moral?

> Party B owes you nothing. You are free to not use their products or start a company to compete.

When 99% of government/banks/etc require you to use a certain service to access basic services, you need some way of ensuring you don't have to sell your soul to use it. Alternatives would be really great, but Google is part of a duopoly.

Just because you build the rails doesn't mean you get to decide who gets to use the trains.

My moral justification is that my right to do with the physical property I have in my physical hand is more important than any noncorporeal corporation's right to do anything with their noncorporeal intellectual property.

The truth is, I gave party C money for a product. Party B does not get to say anything about what party C gave me. And they absolutely do owe me something, and that is the use of the product they gave me for my money. Whatever their terms of service say about licensing versus owning should not trump the fact that I made a one-time purchase and I have physical ownership that they cannot revoke. This is not a car lease where I have a contract with the dealership and they can reposses the car if I don't make the payments.

Party B has access to the market of Party A at Party A's mercy.

Google is engaging in immoral business practices. Since they are immoral, it is morally justified to say they must be stopped.

> how would you feel if you were on the receiving end of such a dictum?

I continue to be astounded how people still just flat out assume that everyone must be a capitalist.

If I were on the receiving end of a dictum aimed at stopping immoral behavior, I would cease my immoral behavior. But I'm not going to be on the receiving end in the first place because I don't aim to do immoral things in the first place.

Party A enforces Party B's intellectual "property"

The moral justification is the same anyone else employs. I have a tool to create an outcome and I'm going to use that tool to produce that outcome. It's that simple.