They don't break the laws because they pay off politicians to write them in their favor. A few years ago they tried to make it explicit and get it written into

They don't break the laws because they pay off politicians to write them in their favor. A few years ago they tried to make it explicit and get it written into law that they would be exempt from investigation over the whole "pyramid thing" permanently. They failed then, but give it another few years and they will succeed. The whole walled garden thing is mostly trivial nonsense. At worst Apple and Google will pay a small fine and a few thousand people will be able to more easily sideload some stuff. Maybe. Probably not though. If it gets to this these companies will simply modify the law so that it doesn't apply to them. Unfair competition is an American virtue these days. Fair competition is seen as "being weak". Even this policy statement wasn't approved 4-0. It was 3-1. You've got government bodies that are so politically divided that you literally can't even get FOUR people—WHO RUN THE FTC—to agree that on a simply policy statement that basically says, "Unfair Methods of Competition bad." The dissenting commissioner wrote a 20 page book why she doesn't support this. And you know what? I mostly agree with the dissenting commissioner. Not wholly because of her views, but because in practice this will be used to harass small(er) business. It will have no material impact on Google, Facebook, Amazon, or Apple.