> By all means, force Apple to open things up, but in the same stroke ensure that there's no uneven enforcement that could allow other corporate giants to expand their monopolies where they previously couldn't.

Well-met, I agree wholeheartedly. Mirosoft, Google and Amazon all deserve to abide by the same rule-of-law.

> There's a lot of support for breaking Apple's iron grip on software distribution on iOS for example, but practically none for breaking Google's iron grip on the web

Well... yeah. If I want to publish a website today, I can buy a VPS and a domain name and have it broadcasting my personal believes by the end of the day. Pretty much everything on the web is working as it should, besides it's monetization model. Google's "iron grip" on the web mostly boils down to Chrome, which isn't terribly broken. Without a good App Store to deliver software, browsers had to adopt technology quickly to compete. That's what birthed things like web notifications and WebRTC, both of which are arguably quite good for the development of the web. Hell, Steve Jobs himself[0] said that he wanted the future of applications to be on the web: Apple was the one who chose to neglect Safari's featureset, which ultimately led to Chrome being superior. Apple definitely has the money to compete, but they choose to drag their feet through the mud because webapp parity with native applications would bleed their App Store profits dry.

> ...even though the latter is arguably far more dangerous since it's corporate appropriation of critical public infrastructure under a guise of openness.

Speak for yourself: the market says that Apple's approach is much more lucrative. Google profits ~60 billion dollars a year from all advertising (not just Chrome-enabled ads, but also mobile/YouTube ads as well). Compare that to the ~85 billion in annual revenue Apple gets from just the App Store (again, not iCloud or Apple One, just their 30% cut), and it would seem that Apple's approach is certainly the more profitable one. It definitely explains why people are more interested in breaking Apple's monopoly than Google's: Apple's simply makes more money.

Plus, who's to say which is more dangerous? Apple appropriates plenty of critical public infrastructure under a guise of benevolence (the App Store, iCloud, Apple Wallet), while many of their products continue to print money and undermine human liberties in oppressive countries like China and Saudi Arabia, where they comply with the outrageous demands of local governments simply because it's profitable to operate there. I don't think anyone can say for sure which is more harmful, unless they somehow started and directed both initiatives.

Ultimately, I agree with you. We need harsh regulation, and it needs to apply to all of big tech evenly. However, people's arguments against Apple aren't ill-founded or unevenly distributed: they simply neglect their software platforms unlike any other developer today. Apple has more resources than any of their other peers, yet they choose to deliberately nerf their own software to drive sales. It's unique, it's endlessly frustrating for developers, and it's 100% a deliberate choice. If this is the pattern of behavior future companies follow, then capitalism will have failed. Societal progress shouldn't be withheld to progress the interests of a private corporation/board of shareholders.

[0] https://youtu.be/p1nwLilQy64?t=1