A big part of it is restrictive and onerous standards on cellular firmware that act as a compliance moat for Apple and Google (and seem designed to enable surveillance more than anything), but if we fail to get open-source alternatives via commonsense regulatory reform the antitrust guns need to come out. When smartphones are often the only authentication mechanism accepted by major payment providers, workplaces, and other contexts that most people can't opt out of, a (fairly cozy, collaborating as often as they compete) duopoly on viable operating systems is unacceptable
Strongly agree, but the existence of platform-integrated DRM is a moral hazard that current incentives don't seem to have a mechanism for overcoming, and the only mechanisms that seem to work require open or at least regulated platforms
A big part of it is restrictive and onerous standards on cellular firmware that act as a compliance moat for Apple and Google (and seem designed to enable surveillance more than anything), but if we fail to get open-source alternatives via commonsense regulatory reform the antitrust guns need to come out. When smartphones are often the only authentication mechanism accepted by major payment providers, workplaces, and other contexts that most people can't opt out of, a (fairly cozy, collaborating as often as they compete) duopoly on viable operating systems is unacceptable