The linked blog post explicitly argues that sideloading doesn't fix the problem. If competition law says Spotify should be allowed to run their own payment syst

The linked blog post explicitly argues that sideloading doesn't fix the problem. If competition law says Spotify should be allowed to run their own payment system on iPhones, then it also needs to be just as easy to install Spotify on iPhones as it is any app that doesn't use said payment system. If Apple says "ok you can still be on iPhone, but users have to jump through hoops to install Spotify", that's still almost as bad. There's two separate but related issues: 1. The App Store lockout 2. The requirement to use Apple's royalty-bearing payment methods for digital goods #1 is evidence of monopolistic intent, but #2 is the actual market harm. If the law considers #2 to be a market harm, then it's going to demand Apple hand direct payments in Spotify to you on a silver platter, not hide it in a back room with a bunch of safety warnings on it. Remember: Antitrust is not about freedom, it's about competition in recognized markets. If it was purely about freedom, they would've just repealed copyright and patents, and had the government directly subsidize all art and invention through monetary grants instead of monopoly rights. As an example of this... the EU fined Google billions of dollars for just having their own services come up first in Search. There is literally no coercion of users involved there; Google Search customers aren't required to use Google Shopping at all. The EU just considers the top of the SERP to be so valuable that they don't think Google should have any of it.