It is not. It is a law to help loser companies benefit from the R&D spend of others. Like message "interoperability" between platforms. Instead of letting the best product win by consumer choice, they're forcing every messaging product to become mediocre. And the list could go on.
It is in the interest of our societies to make sure the markets work, and continue to work. That’s why we created market regulators. If a winner wins so much that they threaten to destroy the market, the importance of having a market trumps the winner’s right to win.
This is monopoly 101. That’s why the US broke up Standard Oil.
> Instead of letting the best product win by consumer choice, they're forcing every messaging product to become mediocre.
Do you really believe products win because they’re the best? I’d strongly argue that monopolistic power and loss-leading VC investment is what drives success.
Yes. This is why, for example Whatsapp is the most used messaging app in the world: it is lightweight and super simple. It could have been any number of apps, but they won fair and square.
This was the first example that comes to mind. And hardware wise I would argue the iPhone is the best phone because so many people buy it compared to other alternatives. And I don't believe for a second people buy because iMessage.
R&D spend? In messaging product?
Sorry, but these companies spend much more effort on making sure their product is walled off and incompatible with everything than giving it any actual quality.
> R&D spend? In messaging product?
You think Whatsapp for example is this lightweight and easy to use on basically any phone because no one spent a dime on some R&D on how to make it the way it is?
I am not well versed in Android or iPhone software development, but yes, I don't believe that making a non-bloated mobile app is pushing the frontier of software engineering.
There could be some arguments made somewhere as to where R&D money could go, perhaps somewhere in the backbone that billions could use, but the UI is not it.
All that said, I don't know how it furthers your initial argument exactly, as the DMA "beneficiaries" benefit from this lightweightness in zero percent. If anything, it's a negative, because one could assume they have to do better than that with what they're offering.
Interoperability is what enables consumer choice and the best product winning in the first place.
Theres no choice if all your friends are on a network that's not interoperable.