How I'd regulate iOS and Android

In mature product categories, incumbents sometimes build deep enough moats that there is no question they will remain dominant for the foreseeable future. Technology changes that disrupt a significant company’s foundations are inevitable, but these changes can rarely come. This dynamic means that, while no business is truly safe from competition in perpetuity (save for government-enforced monopolies, perhaps), extremely dominant players can stay dominant for an extremely long time.

Both iOS and Android have built staggering moats. Until a major technological change completely disrupts the concept of a mobile operating system, startups have virtually no chance of competing with them. AI might be this change, but it probably isn’t. And, if it isn’t AI, we could be decades away from a disruptive shift in the mobile operating system market.

So, should we do something to increase competition in the mobile operating system market? I think it’s challenging to do this without harming consumers (more platforms means fewer great apps per platform). I also think this market’s dynamics would eventually revert to something like the current duopoly (powerful network effects support these products). Notably, iOS and Android are already fantastic platforms that customers are happy with.

The real cost of big tech dominance over mobile operating systems is more nuanced than the fact that there are too few serious players in the market. From my perspective, the primary cost to humanity is the nature of these platforms as ecosystems for developers.

Nearly every human has an iOS or Android computer in their pocket. This makes iOS and Android the obvious platforms on which companies can build innovative software. This dynamic makes iOS and Android massive gatekeepers to innovation. If Apple or Google don’t want a certain type of app to exist, it won’t exist. You can build for the web, which works great for B2B applications, but no major consumer success stories are exclusively running Progressive Web Apps.

So, in the same way that onerous government regulation harms innovation, excessive “regulation” from gatekeepers who control pivotal platforms harms innovation.

My recommendation to governments seeking to address the power of big tech is to focus on this gatekeeper status for innovation. We should force these platforms to loosen their restrictions on what type of apps developers can distribute on their app stores, allow third-party app stores, open up currently locked-down APIs to third-party developers, empower users to develop from mobile platforms, and broaden in-app content purchasing.

In short, if we’re going to be stuck with iOS and Android as the most important software platforms for another decade or more, we should legislate for better competition and innovation within these platforms rather than between them.