This is the crux of the matter: is it anticompetitive to setup an ecosystem where you always get a cut?
Generally, historically, no, this is not anticompetitive, especially given there is another ecosystem with far more market share (but maybe not profitability because more people spend money on iOS apps). Inserting yourself to take a cut for a service or a key component is good business practice, and built the empires that every student in business school or in tech entrepreneurship is taught to emulate. So long as the wealth pie grows, it isn’t rent seeking to keep taking your cut.
What amazes me is that people think iOS and Apple (and even Android and Google) are near-permanent fixtures that should be regulated as utilities, rather than a temporary incumbent that will eventually be disrupted as the world changes.
Microsoft’s reign of dictating terms to ISVs a lasted around 20 years. They’re still incredibly profitable and still take a cut of almost every PC sale (or XBox game / movie / tv show sale). They don’t have the clout they used to because the tech changed.
At some point, new things will come, such as AR/VR, and we may see companies such as Valve and Oculus/Facebook become the new tech ecosystem dictators. The winner takes all dynamics of platforms seem to make this inevitable. Why enshrine Apple and Google as utilities now, when they’ll be less relevant in 10 years?
What's more scary is not that a single company or group of companies will be a permanent fixture but rather that this model of computing will be permanent!
If you would have told me 20 years ago that the creator of an operating system would take a 30% cut of every piece of software sold, I would have thought you crazy. If you would have told me Apple or Microsoft would dictate to me what software I could run, I would have considered that a massive invasion of freedom. But today this model is considered totally normal and encouraged.
We aren't seeing other companies competing with this model on price or freedom -- we see companies wanting to enforce their own control and get their own 30% cut. Microsoft has tried it. Google is doing it. Oculus does it. Apple will certainly bring it MacOS.
As software developers and users, is that really what we want?
As software users, we definitely have voted with our wallets to say that properly executed vertical integration (As Apple has done), and the end to end UX control that comes with it, are highly desirable. The iPhone is arguably (and surprisingly) the most successful non-food/drug product line in human history by unit sales, revenue, or profits. The 30% cut and ecosystem control are likely a feature, not a bug. The user experience and security of the horizontally open market PC was pretty bad until Microsoft was forced to invest.
As ISVs, clearly there are major downsides to this state of affairs. But I’m not sure I wish for the days where Microsoft reigned and would just put you out of business on a whim.
I don’t think Microsoft’s antitrust consent decree had as much of an impact as some think, it was more about entrepreneurship and new tech (largely the iPhone! But also Amazon, Facebook, and Google) that reduced their clout.
I don’t think Apple will bring this control to MacOS; you can’t put genies back into bottles.
> The 30% cut and ecosystem control are likely a feature, not a bug.
The only feature I can see for this is making Apple a multi-trillion dollar company. Apple is profiting massively off of our labor and yes, we have been so far happy to give that to them, but perhaps now is the time to revisit that relationship.
With Apple abusing their control to deny access to cloud gaming maybe this success is a Faustian deal.
> I don’t think Apple will bring this control to MacOS
I think it will be a function of going to Apple silicon.
Generally, historically, no, this is not anticompetitive, especially given there is another ecosystem with far more market share (but maybe not profitability because more people spend money on iOS apps). Inserting yourself to take a cut for a service or a key component is good business practice, and built the empires that every student in business school or in tech entrepreneurship is taught to emulate. So long as the wealth pie grows, it isn’t rent seeking to keep taking your cut.
What amazes me is that people think iOS and Apple (and even Android and Google) are near-permanent fixtures that should be regulated as utilities, rather than a temporary incumbent that will eventually be disrupted as the world changes.
Microsoft’s reign of dictating terms to ISVs a lasted around 20 years. They’re still incredibly profitable and still take a cut of almost every PC sale (or XBox game / movie / tv show sale). They don’t have the clout they used to because the tech changed.
At some point, new things will come, such as AR/VR, and we may see companies such as Valve and Oculus/Facebook become the new tech ecosystem dictators. The winner takes all dynamics of platforms seem to make this inevitable. Why enshrine Apple and Google as utilities now, when they’ll be less relevant in 10 years?