Comment by arrosenberg

> If I’m raising sheep on my farm it isn’t my duty to provide my land to my neighbor to also raise sheep.

This is the wrong analogy. If you want to use the feudalism analogy (which I always find appropriate for antitrust discussions), Apple is the Ducal landlord and also owns several farms that compete with their tenants.

Now, in medieval England, you would be right that the landlord has every right to do this. In the modern United States of America, antitrust laws are specifically written to avoid this arrangement. That there is another farm is irrelevant - we have laws to keep the power of landlords in check as a matter of governing philosophy.

For the last 50 years, a pro-consolidation school of thought has formed that specifically precludes enforcement of the laws, but the laws are still on the books that specifically aim to prevent an incestuous relationship between producers and distributors. In Apple's case, they have bundled the App Store and OS in a way that allows them to make the rules of the market and precludes a reasonable degree of competition in a major sector of the economy - it's an obvious target for competent law enforcement to take this type of action.