Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil Hypatel, editor and chief of the

verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. This week I'm

talking to Horacio Gutierrez, head of Global Affairs and Chief Legal Officer of

Spotify. I asked Horacio to come on Decoder this week and help me understand

why Spotify and so many other app developers are so frustrated with Apple.

Horacio recently testified in front of Congress about Apple's business

practices and he just wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal calling Apple

a ruthless bully. It's a lot. But it's all part of a trend. If you've been

listening to Decoder or reading the verge or just following tech news recently,

you probably know there's a lot of government interest around the world in

managing the size and power of big tech companies. A few weeks ago we had

Senator Amy Klobuchar on the show to talk about that hearing in Congress and her

proposed anti-trust law reforms. There are ongoing anti-trust lawsuits right

now from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and various

states against Google, Facebook, and Amazon. There's a ton of regulatory

pressure in Europe with a new proceeding against Apple and a long history of

enforcement against Google and Facebook. And of course there's a trial

between Epic Games which makes Fortnite and Apple. Epic sued Apple nine

months ago claiming that the iPhone maker unfairly restricts competition for

app distribution and in-app payments and requested sweeping remedies from the

court, including allowing other app stores on Apple devices. That trial took

three weeks to involve testimony from both Apple CEO Tim Cook and Epic CEO Tim

...