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Legal consequences, which are backed by the state's apparatus of violence comprising of police, judges and prisons, should only be used against those who engage in fraud or violence. Running a closed API, as much as I may dislike it, is neither of those things.

There are plenty of other ways to counter closed APIs that do not rely on initiating force.



There is also the tool of taxation and fines, which while in turn are backed by a threat of violence are not the black and white which you allude to.


Taxes and fines are entirely within the realm of legal consequences I was referring to.

Fining people who get abortions, or engage in promiscuous behavior, or don't subscribe to the dominant religion, doesn't strike you as authoritarian?




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