It’s mind boggling that Apple won their case against Epic in my opinion since they really do the exact same thing as Google. The only legal difference as pointed out in the Google trial is that Google doesn’t control the hardware that the app stores come on while Apple does (owns the end to end ecosystem). Apple won simply because they monopolize the entire ecosystem. And before people chime in with “Apple deserves their 30% because security” fanboy nonsense, think about how Apple and Google both arrived at 30% as Thr number for their cut and why it’s never changed in the 14 years it’s existed - because it’s a monopoly!
A fun thought experiment would be to consider how the market would respond if the app store fee was, say, 50%... 60%... 90%?
Obviously there's a breaking point, and we see plenty of companies (like, obviously, Epic) buck at the 30% threshold, but you better believe Apple modeled the hell out of this and landed at 30% as "the most we can get away with while keeping a straight face."
Great for Apple shareholders, horrible for innovation, startups, and novel business models that can't survive a 30% cleaving of their top-line revenue.
> Apple and Google both arrived at 30% as Thr number for their cut and why it’s never changed in the 14 years it’s existed
Trial documents show that Google charges 0%, 10% or 15% - depending on a situation. Lower than 15% rates were called “bribes” by Epic lawyers. The jury seemed to agree.
