They are not punishing success. They are only punishing behaviour that harms consumers and competition. They gave Apple and Google a decade to sort themselves out. The same as the market was given over a decade to standardise on a single charging port.
The EU worked hard to get the market to agree on a standard port, they tried to avoid legislation, with the recommendation being MicroUSB at the time. When the market failed to come together, they pushed USB-C as the emerging standard. That worked very nicely. I am down from dozens of USB-A chargers and bespoke cables, plus another 10 non-USB chargers to 3 USB-C chargers for everything, plus a single MicroUSB cable for 3 devices I haven't yet got around to changing.
It was the same with Microsoft in the 90s, they were told to play fair with the competition (not force manufacturers to include a Microsoft license with every VMware server or PC sold for a home build with Linux). Now, if I buy a new PC, I can chose which OS I want, or none. Likewise they were forced to document all of their server APIs, which means we now have a wider variety of tools that work on Server and are better integrated and the systems run more stable.
The DMA is the same result of years of failed negotiations with Big Tech, they were given years to sort things out themselves and stop abusing their position. They ignored the threats, they didn't have a Brad Smith on board who saw the futility of being the bad guys and they are now reaping the rewards.
The EU isn't punishing success, they are punishing the abuse of power by monopolies and monopsonies who close of innovation or who force customers and competitors to pay through the nose to use work on or with their systems.
Google was doing a Microsoft, every Android device had to have a Google Play Store license and the Google apps. There was AOSP, but if a manufacturer built a single non-Google Android device, they could no longer sell any Google licensed devices - this caught out a couple of small companies wanting to build their own AOSP devices over the years, they designed a system and took it to a manufacturer (Pegatron, I believe) and they refused to make their AOSP device, because it meant all the licensed devices they made for other companies could no longer be made by Pegatron, the story was the same at every door they knocked on.
Acer (I believe) wanted to build a range of Google Android devices, but also the same devices with Aliyun OS (an AOSP derivative) for those that didn't want the Google baggage. Google gave them an ultimatum, either drop the Aliyum OS devices or never make a Google Android device again.
Did Google Really Stop Acer From Making a Non-Android Phone? (Update: Yes)
Acer was planning on launching a low-end phone in China running Aliyun OS, a Linux based operating system that's only relevant to us because it wasn't
gizmodo.com
Fitbit users have suffered on iPhone for years that their fitness bands and smartwatches don't work fully. The newly resurrected Pebble is facing the same problem, fully featured on Android, castrated functionality on iOS.
If Apple let these sorts of things work properly with iOS they would lose a minimal number of sales of Apple Watches, get good publicity, possibly more iPhone sales and more goodwill, but they are determined to keep doing the wrong thing for as long as they can.
It is the same with these silly alternate stores. 99.9% of iPhone users aren't interested in them and would never use them. But Apple does everything it can to give itself a bad reputation and to garner more interest in alternate stores. If they had quietly allowed 3rd party stores to work, hardly anyone would know about them, hardly anyone would bother installing them and Apple gets good press or no press about it. Instead they strived to get the biggest Streisand Effect out of the situation that they could!
For the fear of losing a couple of million Euros in lost App Store sales, they have fought themselves into a position which forces them to open up to other stores and face multi-billion Euro fines for not complying with the laws they forced to be made and gotten themselves a bad reputation... Way to go!
And, no, I'm not anti-Apple, I really like Apple products, I have an iPhone 16 Pro, Watch 10, iPad Air M2, MacBook Pro M4 and at work an iPhone 14, iPad Air M2 and a MacBook Air M1, which I am looking to upgrade to an M4 shortly... I want Apple to succeed, but I hate what they are doing to themselves with their shortsighted stupidity.
Too many people are "fans" of Big Tech, but have forgotten that being a fan also has the responsibility to look at what they are a fan of a criticise it, when it makes mistakes, they should be shouting at them when they misstep, not becoming yes-men, saying their "hero" can do no wrong. These camps of "fanbois" have lost the plot, for them their "hero" company (what a stupid idea to start with) can do no wrong and must be supported no matter what they do, instead of calling them out when they do something to harm the fans or the world in general. And Apple have become masters of manipulating the image that they have forgotten that it can backfire.
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