U.S. Supreme Court to hear Apple App Store antitrust dispute

Why should I, as a consumer? I don't understand this argument from Apple apologists.

> Apple didn’t even invent the walled-garden digital software store; Microsoft was using it on the X-Box in 2005.

So if it wasn't called out then, it should never be called out ever?

The full reasoning chain seems to be that Hanover Shoe v United Shoe Machinery Corp (1968), in which the issue was USMC's leasing but refusal to sell machinery on which they had a monopoly, decided that being able to "pass along costs" was not a valid defense by a monopoly when sued by its direct customers.

Consequently, in Illinois Brick v Illinois (1977) the court decided that if a monopoly cannot use "they can pass along costs" as a defense from damages, then it follows that indirect purchasers (ie customers of customers) cannot use same offensively to sue a monopoly.

The intent is to prevent the complexity of calculating damages-once-removed, and putting the onus on the (simpler) damage calculation between direct monopoly and immediate customer.

If the Court upholds the prior decision, the plaintiffs will be denied standing. In that case, the appropriate legal challenge would either be an app seller suing Apple, or a customer suing an app seller (who could likely sue Apple in response).

If this is still case law, the only way I see this going another way is if the Court sees Apple's flat-30% as fundamentally different (and simpler) than the previously considered costs.

[1] Hanover Shoe, Inc. v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 392 U.S. 481 (1968) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/481/

[2] Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720 (1977) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/431/720/

This isn't the case with the iPhone. It isn't niche and plenty of people want to build and be listed in alternatives, but they are prevented from doing so.

It's interesting because I imagine that'll be Apple's argument, and the natural counter-argument is that the $0.99 price is deceptive because of the "freemium" model of most apps.

Not sure how convincing they can make that argument, but it'll be interesting nonetheless. I imagine it'll involve putting an average "cost-per-app" including in-app purchases.

The perfect example of this is the subscription services, right now you can get a cheaper subscription to a service such as Spotify if you buy it off the App Store. That is a prime example of how much the 30% payment to Apple is hurting developers and ultimately consumers... Apple is so upset about this they won’t let developers like Spotify link to buying the subscription on their own website anywhere on the app that is sold through their App Store, if that’s not Monopoly abuse I don’t know what is.

As much as I love Apples products I do feel that they have gotten away with a lot here, especially since there is zero other ways to load apps into iOS devices, in the very least consumers are paying 30% more for apps if there was a competing App Store on iOS that charged less to load apps.

Edit: whether the Supreme Court will see it this way or not is a whole other issue.