I've said this before in previous discussions of this case -

I don't think anyone is arguing that Apple shouldn't have the right to charge companies that take advantage of the products and services that they've built in their store

I think that problem is that Apple is arbitrarily denying the ability for any other company to provide a competing product. How can you honestly evaluate the value proposition of Apple's "great" store, if they've killed all the competition?

You can't. Which is the whole damn point, because Epic HAS a store that I'm sure they'd love to release on iOS but Apple prohibits it.

Basically - Apple is the bully who's now crying foul when the competition is actually trying to enter the game.

From a monetary standpoint, I understand why Apple is doing this. As a developer and distributor of software (my day job), I cannot express clearly enough how much I'd like to see Apple lose this case. As far as I'm concerned, they can fuck right off.

I'm firmly in the "Handle it like MS and IE" camp - I want a court ruling that not only prohibits Apple from stopping competition in their store space, I want a MANDATORY popup on first use that asks the user which store they'd like to use.

The counter argument is that Apple has structured the deal so that you can't avoid the store. Additionally if you're in the store, Apple forbids you from advertising cheaper alternatives to in-app purchases.

So basically if you want to sell on Apple, you must give Apple a 30% of all sales on the platform AND you're not allowed to tell users they can purchase your wares via alternatives.

>Don’t wanna pay? Don’t go to the store.

Is this supposed to be an ironic comment? Because if it is not, I'm concerned for your knowledge about the situation.

Don’t wanna use Standard Oil, don’t use oil. See how that works?

That doesn't mean this is "theft" though.

Even if Apple ultimately is found to not be a monopoly, this particular action would be a simple contract breach. Not theft.