The issue, though, is that it appears the focus is WHOLLY on trying to facilitate competition on platforms owned by non-governmental entities rather than by fostering and supporting competition at the hardware/OS level. The solution for prior monopolies wasn’t to implement a process where Standard Oil becomes the “standard” with everyone taking advantage of the fact that Standard found the oil, drilled for the oil, obtained the oil, trucked or piped the oil to distribution places, then create competition among people selling Standard Oil. That just leaves Standard Oil in the position of power they had. Instead, they made it so that the things Standard Oil were doing to restrict the creation and growth of other oil companies were ended, allowing the desired competition for the collection and distribution of oil.
The Google Play store exists as competition to the Apple App Store due to the hardware and OS that was built to provide a different user experience (and Apple was in no position to hinder the creation of or restrict the growth of the Google Play store, unlike Standard Oil), which gave Google a huge market advantage over the iPhone resulting in it’s commanding worldwide marketshare. If Google had been required to facilitate competition on top of Apple devices that would have meant that Apple’s iOS becomes the OS the majority of mobile phone owners are using, on devices created OR having their hardware defined by Apple, requiring Apple designated or approved development tools and ZERO ANDROID.
The “golden egg” is “new technology that challenges the status quo and drives adoption”. Because the EU and the UK have no leaders that understand, or have even worked to provide incentives to create and grow, companies that make devices and services that delight billions of folks, they believe the solution is to ”kill the goose”… stagnating tech in their regions by requiring competition to occur ON TOP OF OLD TECHNOLOGY. THAT is what’s killing innovation, that’s what stifles the creation of any NEW technology for those regions. I predict that, instead of trying to do anything in the VR/AR space, they’re just waiting to see who becomes successful in order to label them a “gatekeeper”. Thing is, now that these companies know the stance of these regions, they WILL be altering how they release any new technology into that region (and we’ve already seen that start). And, any new upstart companies with compelling tech from India, China, or the US? They may release in those regions, but I would be surprised if they didn’t curtail the number of units they shipped to those regions to avoid being labeled a “gatekeeper” (will it work, though? The iPad does not meet the quantitative metrics for being a “gatekeeper”, but they labeled it one anyway!).