Existing laws and the threat of regulation can force tech giants to open up, as recent right to repair-related changes by Apple and Microsoft show
Zephyr Teachout / New Republic : Tweets: @newrepublic and @doctorow Tweets: @newrepublic : Imagine a future where individuals control and direct their own data, their own history of interactions of shopping and reading, much like they now log their financial activity in a private bank account. https://newrepublic.com/... Cory Doctorow / @doctorow : Look Out, Big Tech, We're Coming for You https://newrepublic.com/... In which @ZephyrTeachout explains how #antitrust is more than breaking up companies - which can take decades! Rather, it's a whole toolbox of remedies that can make a difference to our lives *right now*
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's and Microsoft's right-to-repair concessions arrive mid-way through a multi-year reassessment of US antitrust: since calls to rethink decades-old antitrust law built around consumer protection surfaced in 2018, the debate has split between breaking companies up — a process Teachout notes can take decades — and deploying a broader toolbox of remedies.
This piece makes the case for the second path: that existing statutes plus the credible threat of new ones can extract openness now. It lands months after the House Judiciary Committee approved its 450-page report accusing Big Tech of buying and crushing smaller rivals as a potential legislative blueprint, and shortly after Communications of the ACM argued that mandating interoperability would empower users and spark competition more directly than litigation.
First-order effects
- Device owners and independent repair shops gain real access to parts, tools, and documentation from Apple and Microsoft that were previously locked inside each company's authorized network.
- Both companies concede ground voluntarily under legal pressure — a cheaper path than waiting for binding rules they do not control.
Second-order effects
- Regulators and lawmakers get proof that threat-based leverage works without a breakup fight, strengthening the remedy-toolbox camp against those betting on the Judiciary blueprint's structural legislation.
- Other device and platform makers face a choice: match the repair openness or become the next named target of the same legal threat.
Third-order effects
- If threat-driven concessions keep delivering, enforcement migrates from episodic lawsuits toward a standing regime where governed access — repair today, mandated interoperability tomorrow — becomes a de facto condition of operating at platform scale.
The trend: Big Tech is being pushed toward regulated openness less by new statutes than by the credible threat of them, with right to repair serving as the first proving ground.