Lauren Feiner, reporting for The Verge:

The US Department of Justice accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in an expansive new antitrust lawsuit that seeks to upend many of the ways Apple locks down iPhones.

The DOJ, along with 16 state and district attorneys general, accuses Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its phones. The parties allege that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone as a way to prevent competition from arising, according to the release.

“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote.

The government points to several different ways that Apple has allegedly illegally maintained its monopoly:

• Disrupting “super apps” that encompass many different programs and could degrade “iOS stickiness” by making it easier for iPhone users to switch to competing devices

• Blocking cloud-streaming apps for things like video games that would lower the need for more expensive hardware

• Suppressing the quality of messaging between the iPhone and competing platforms like Android

• Limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches with its iPhones and making it harder for Apple Watch users to switch from the iPhone due to compatibility issues

• Blocking third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with tap-to-pay functionality for the iPhone

Alright, let’s break this ridiculous lawsuit down piece by piece:

Disrupting “super apps” that encompass many different programs and could degrade “iOS stickiness” by making it easier for iPhone users to switch to competing devices…

What the hell is a “super app?” Quit making up new terms.

Blocking cloud-streaming apps for things like video games that would lower the need for more expensive hardware…

That was changed two months ago. Try again.

Suppressing the quality of messaging between the iPhone and competing platforms like Android…

Completely incorrect — it’s just absolute nonsense. Apple allows every popular third-party messaging service, like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Viber, Skype — you name it, the App Store has got it — on the iPhone, allowing free, interoperable, high-quality messaging between platforms. Those apps are allowed to use Apple-built application programming interfaces to integrate with Siri, the Phone app, notifications, and to display calls and text messages just like ones from Apple-made services, such as iMessage. Apple not only allows these apps to function fully on iOS but also recommends them on the App Store. Completely false — Beeper’s lobbyists have taken control of the Justice Department.

Limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches with its iPhones and making it harder for Apple Watch users to switch from the iPhone due to compatibility issues…

That is literally the only good point made in this entire article. Regardless, it does not make Apple a monopoly.

Blocking third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with tap-to-pay functionality for the iPhone.

That is ludicrous. Apple Pay is an Apple technology and third-party developers have no right to it because Apple does not want them to have access to it.

Apple is a private corporation, for heaven’s sake — has the Justice Department forgotten that? Is this the European Union? The United States has thrived due to a free market where corporations are allowed to be corporations. The Justice Department blatantly ignores that Apple has (a) made a product and (b) is now using it how it wants to use that product. What is the government to control how a corporation does business as long as it is not attacking competition? Blocking access to your product is not attacking competition. Making deals with other corporations to enhance your product is not attacking competition. You know what is attacking competition? Buying WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus and owning the most egregious monopoly in the history of “Big Tech.” Maybe the Justice Department should go after Meta next — and drop this ridiculous lawsuit that will irreparably hurt Americans if won by the government.