Why Musk vs Apple is a fight worth fighting

The first tweet from Twitter Inc. owned by the world’s richest man was announcing a much-anticipated upgrade to its subscription feature. It was also a shot across the bow of the world’s largest company and marked a potential showdown that could end up bringing much-needed change to the mobile app industry.

Twitter Blue will be relaunched on Monday with a handful of features that Elon Musk and his team justify the monthly fee: A blue tick, longer videos, higher visibility, and an edit button. More importantly, however, Twitter announced two prices for the same service: $8 (about Rs 660) per month if you sign up on its website, but $11 (about Rs 900) when users sign up through Apple Inc.’s iOS platform. That 37.5 percent premium is a not-so-gentle take on Apple’s 30 percent cut in subscription fees, which is going through iOS and be app store.

For years, app developers and content providers have complained that this “Apple tax” is too high and too restrictive. If you’re buying an app, upgrading, or subscribing to ongoing services like streaming music or videos, then Apple collects 30 percent. That means the company will be paid $3.30 (about Rs. 270) per month for every person who signs up for Twitter Blue through Apple. Because of this, Twitter has decided to discourage people from using Apple and signing up on its own website. to be fair Google play store collects similar commissions with its own limitations.

Musk brought this charge to the attention of his 120 million followers last month, despite being among many industry executives who have known and complained about it for years.

in August 2020, Epic Games Inc. did more than just whine. The publisher of hit games, including Fourteen days and Infinity Blade sued Apple over a particularly prohibitive rule set iPhone Manufacturer buried in its 20-page license agreement. First, it requires subscriptions purchased within an app to use the in-app purchase platform – preventing publishers from charging credit cards directly and ensuring Apple collects its taxes. Second, it prevents developers from providing information or links to places where a user could sign up outside of the Apple ecosystem.

It’s this latter decree that got under the skin of Epic boss Tim Sweeney, who tweaked Fortnite’s app to bypass the payment system – a move that led to the top-selling game being blocked from Apple’s App Store and a lawsuit was triggered. Spotify Technology SA completely skips this chatter by only allowing subscriptions through its website.

Unfortunately for Epic, software developers and smartphone users around the world, US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in favor of Apple on nine of the North Carolina-based company’s ten counts. Among other things, Rogers noted that Apple doesn’t have a monopoly because there are alternatives, including Alphabet Inc’s Google Play Store. However, she decreed that Apple should relax its rules on external links. But the fight isn’t over as the case is now in the hands of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Apple might win the battle but lose the war,” Jennifer Rie, senior litigation analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote last month. “The ruling could also spark bipartisan support for upcoming legislation regulating app stores.”

This is where Musk comes in. While Twitter’s new owner has recently used its access to the social media platform to hit back at the “woke” crowd, exposing alleged censorship of right-wing information and restoring previously banned accounts, term wars could shift from the platform’s content to its business model turn around.

The battle over the Google-Apple duopoly has so far largely been fought out in court. The two giants argue that they provide infrastructure, marketing, and moderation support that ensures developers are paid and users are protected. This argument is valid. Allowing software to be installed on a phone without verification is a huge risk, and apps are mostly found through the stores themselves, so fair compensation is an important part of the business model.

But a 30 percent fee for services where the app platform adds little value, such as B. video streaming, seems to be out of balance – especially if these providers are limited in their ability to inform users about an alternative payment platform in the first place. The directive also forces software and content makers to spend increasing amounts of money on marketing just to be seen, which is particularly difficult when those providers have their own products – like Apple Music and Apple TV+ – that come preinstalled and included Spotify and Netflix compete Inc.

Twitter’s tweet, from his own @twitter Account, makes fun of the current situation. Twitter, the app, is not allowed to advertise in its own software that there is a cheaper price – but Twitter, the Twitter user, can use its own social media platform to let the world know about it.

That’s the kind of power that Epic, Spotify and Netflix not swing. Even microsoft corp, which makes software but doesn’t compete in the mobile app market, is part of the growing chorus against Apple and in support of Epic. But none of them can boast nearly every senator and congressman as an account holder, nor a high-profile executive who doesn’t mind throwing grenades and burning bridges.

And now it might be time for Musk to throw his weight behind the wheel. The Open App Markets Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in August 2021 by Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal, would require companies to offer alternative app stores and payment systems, and would ban Apple and Google discourage them from favoring their own products.

But that bill has yet to make it to the bottom and could be further delayed if a procedural maneuver fails in the coming days, Bloomberg News reported last week. That means months, maybe years, until the app giants are forced to change. Unless Musk decides to jump into the fray and take on Apple head-on.

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