United States v. Apple

Fortnite, on the other hand, like most games, is selling purely virtual goods that have zero marginal cost; a costume or emote are bits in a database. Epic may be right that Apple’s 30% take is higher than it would be if the App Store had competition, but ultimately the cost of Fortnite’s V-Bucks is a completely arbitrary one (that is why, for exam... See more

The odds are that Apple isn’t going to change anything; the App Store is extremely profitable, and Apple is probably going to win its court case. Why give up a single dime? At the same time, the constant wave of controversies have to be wearing on the company, from a morale perspective if nothing else. Apple can be legitimately accused of profiteer... See more

A subtext to last week’s article, Tech’s Two Philosophies, was the idea that there is a difference between Aggregators and Platforms; this was the key section:It is no accident that Apple and Microsoft, the two “bicycle of the mind” companies, were founded only a year apart, and for decades had broadly similar business models: sure, Microsoft licen... See more