This seems like a huge bridge-burning move.

If I owned a grocery store chain, and some food company decided to trash me in the press, mock me, and sue me, I would never allow a single one of their products on my store's shelves again, forever, regardless of the outcome. I honestly don't understand what Epic hopes to achieve here. Why wouldn't Apple just ban Epic products from their store for good after this?

Epic probably plans to win the case and force Apple to loosen restrictions on iOS.

Apple isn’t the store owner, they are the shelf manufacturer. We are the store owners, and Apple is telling us what we’re allowed to put on our shelves. You know, I don’t think this is a great metaphorical framework.

Apple definitely is the store owner. They built and run the AppStore app and backend infrastructure, set the rules for what goes on the shelves and what doesn't, take a (large) cut for providing distribution, arrange things on the shelves, point people to products. Whether you disagree with Apple or not in this case, these are functions of a store, and it's clearly Apple's store.

> My guess, and hope, is that Epic takes Apple to the cleaners.

They're not asking for money, they're just asking for an order ordering Apple to stop their anti-competitive behavior with the app store and with payments. No cleaners are likely to be involved in this process win or lose.

That phrase has two common meanings..

Uh?

The only meaning I'm aware of is "to take tons of money from", what's the other?

2. To soundly defeat or best one; to succeed over one by a wide margin.

-- https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/take+to+the+cleaners

Apple is worth 2 trillion if we are looking at market cap. They can literally buy out epic if they wanted to.

Not necessarily. Tim Sweeney owns more than half of Epic Games, and (presumably, I'm obviously not privy to what contracts he has signed) has no obligation to sell for any amount of money. He is also rich enough to have "fuck the world money" and not accept a price that is far above what his share in Epic Games is actually worth.

That would be a stupid strategy for Apple, for a multitude of reasons:

1. Fighting it out in court, and then paying damages is probably going to be cheaper than 18 billion USD.

2. I don’t know if AppStore profits (NPV of discounted future profits) make it even worth 18 billion USD.

3. If they buy out Epic, they’re signaling weakness which is basically asking the next company to play the same game.

4. It just provides more evidence & impetus for those pushing for antitrust action.

There is technically a chance Apple might eventually acquire Epic, but if so, that would be driven by Apple seeking an interesting platform for its VR hardware, not to just close down this lawsuit.

Apple would have to be insane to do that. Within a month they would have the same problem with the rest of the top 10 paid apps.

Only if Tim is willing to sell it.