#302: Epic v. Apple

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2021

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last year, Epic Games made a splash with its lawsuit / ad campaign challenging the rules and commission structure of the Apple app store. Last week, a judge ruled in favor of Apple — but only just, and not in full. Geoff Manne, president and founder of the International Center for Law & Economics, joins the show to discuss the decision, what it means for Apple, and how it could shape the future of antitrust policy. The quote that Geoff and Corbin grasp for, about seven minutes in, is John Hicks’s quip that “The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Corbyn Barthold. When the iPhone first came out,
0:15.0	Steve Jobs opposed allowing third-party apps on it. As Walter Isaacson writes in his Jobs' biography, Jobs, quote,
0:23.6	didn't want outsiders to create applications for the iPhone that could mess it up, infect it with viruses,
0:29.6	or pollute its integrity. Eventually, Jobs relented, and you might say the rest is history.
0:36.6	Today, there are more than two million
0:38.7	apps available in Apple's App Store. This makes sense. iPhones and iPhone apps are what economists
0:45.2	call complementary goods. If there are lots of good apps available, demand for iPhones will
0:50.7	increase. Indeed, making the app Store into a marketplace ensures that enterprising
0:56.2	app developers can fill niches that no one else, including an Apple, would otherwise imagine.
1:02.2	But Jobs' concern about the tension between quality control and openness lives on.
1:08.0	Last year, Epic Games sued Apple, alleging that the tight controls Apple sets on third-party
1:14.3	apps, along with the commissions Apple collects on in-app sales, violate the antitrust laws.
1:21.8	Epic versus Apple has attracted a lot of attention, and for good reason. The case is both momentous in its own right and worth
1:29.5	watching for what it might tell us about the various other litigation and potential legislation
1:34.0	being aimed at the nation's largest tech companies. Epic versus Apple proceeded to a bench trial
1:41.0	before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in the Northern District of California.
1:46.8	Last Friday, she issued her ruling. Everyone seems to agree that the ruling is best described as being
1:53.1	mostly in favor of Apple. Success is not illegal, the judge wrote. Nonetheless, how far that mostly in favor,
2:03.5	how far that goes is an interesting question
2:06.5	and when I look forward to discussing with my guest.
2:09.8	Indeed, I'm very excited about my guest today.
2:13.4	Jeff Mani is the president and founder
	...

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