I never said it was unlawful. I also didn't say it not rational. I said it was a bad idea.
It's a bad idea because it's hurts their own customers. It's a bad idea because it causes some people not to buy their product.
Huggies is a ridiculously bad example.
A better example is the Michelin PAX run flat wheels (rims) that require special (expensive) tires. Nothing illegal there, it's a great lock in. Except customers refuse to buy it, and not just refuse to buy the wheels, they won't even buy a car with those, and car manufacturers started having to add an option to not have run flat tires.
With the tires, it's just a bad idea, but with an iPhone apple is blocking access to a customers data. It's MY iPhone apple - not yours.
There are classes of customers that some businesses don't want. It's also rational to ward off customers who are pains in the ass.
As for the "it's MY iPhone argument", I sympathize with it, but I see the other side of the argument too: I also want companies to be free to create any reasonable business model they'd like. Apple very specifically and deliberately didn't sell you an iPhone as a general-purpose computing platform you could do anything you want with, and you can't claim that you bought it expecting to use it as a Linux box.
It's a bad idea because it's hurts their own customers. It's a bad idea because it causes some people not to buy their product.
Huggies is a ridiculously bad example.
A better example is the Michelin PAX run flat wheels (rims) that require special (expensive) tires. Nothing illegal there, it's a great lock in. Except customers refuse to buy it, and not just refuse to buy the wheels, they won't even buy a car with those, and car manufacturers started having to add an option to not have run flat tires.
With the tires, it's just a bad idea, but with an iPhone apple is blocking access to a customers data. It's MY iPhone apple - not yours.