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this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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At the end of the day, this was kind of a different legal battle. Google negotiated one-off deals with big tech companies, and some of those companies are getting better deals than their competitors.
Apple doesn’t appear to do that. The marketplace has one set of rules that apply to everyone. Spotify doesn’t have different a AppStore contract than Tidal.
For all we know, Google may have won this case if they simply made everyone abide by the same contract. Playing king maker kind of fucked them.
This is the answer.
Apple wasn't abusing their monopoly, while "Don't Be Evil" Google was colluding to protect theirs.
A monopoly is inherently abusive. It abuses centralized power to gain more power. But I would argue that Apple built their monopoly "honestly" from the ground up, and from day one the rules haven't changed. Google started with an open platform, and sneakily changed the rules and made deals to get their monopoly.
Both are objectively bad. But Google's method was more open to legal scrutiny, in hindsight.
Apple change the rules right under people's apps all the time, in much more scumbag ways, e.g. https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/16/22676706/apple-watch-swipe-keyboard-flicktype-lawsuit-kosta-eleftheriou
Fair, they do shit like that. But this case was about app stores specifically, and they haven't allowed alternate app stores since day one.
The fact that one kind of monopoly isn't abuse on technical grounds (but still is abuse is in many other ways) but another monopoly is abuse is exactly the problem being highlighted. Why are we just sweeping this problem under the rug of public opinion?
It could also be how the Apple trial was just in front of the judge, but the Google trial went to a jury. Could Epic have had a different result if they requested a jury trial the first time?