The news of the week was that the closely-watched trial between Apple Computer and Epic Games concluded. It was not a win all around, but it did deal “a massive blow to the walled-garden business model of Apple’s App Store.”

According to CNBC, “Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers…issued an injunction that said Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing. Apple typically takes a 15% to 30% cut of gross sales.”

“Apple will now be required to allow developers to direct users to third-party payment processors, meaning developers can now collect revenue directly, and can no longer disallow developers from using account registration data to contact users outside the app,” Gizmodo reported. “…but it’s very far from a complete victory. Gonzalez Rogers ruled against the gaming company on every single other count, finding that while Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition law, the case did not establish Apple to be an illegal monopolist…It’s not clear, as of this moment, how wide the ramifications will be beyond the App Store specifically. Google, which also booted Fortnite from its Play Store in response to Epic’s moves, is facing a similar lawsuit that has yet to be resolved.”

Apple won nine out of 10 of the counts, for the record, and as to Apple’s monopolistic practices, “the Court recognized ‘success is not illegal.’”

It certainly does pay well, though

Apple’s Tim Cook gets US$750m bonus payout in honor of his 10^th anniversary at the company’s helm. Even as Apple just banned a pay equity Slack channel but lets fun dogs channel lie. Discussions about pay equity are permitted under the law, and “Pay equity has been a hot topic among Apple employees over the past few months. The company has shut down multiple employee surveys aimed at gathering data on how much workers make. One survey, started by Apple engineer Cher Scarlett, has seemingly been allowed to stay up. An early analysis of the results showed a 6 percent wage gap between the salaries of men and women who participated,” The Verge reported. “Slack channels are provided to conduct Apple business and must advance the work, deliverables, or mission of Apple departments and teams,” an employee relations representative told employees.” Fun dogs??? $750M bonus, Gracie??? Which was widely reported everywhere. Money talks, but depending on whose money and who’s talking, it can also very easily get muzzled, it seems.

And it wasn’t all that long ago that Tim Cook called Nancy Pelosi to warn her against disrupting the iPhone with antitrust and wonder if that at all influenced the Epic decision. “Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen think tanks and advocacy groups paid by tech companies have swarmed Capitol offices, called and emailed lawmakers and their staff members, and written letters arguing there will be dire consequences for the industry and the country if the ideas become law,” the New York Times wrote. Our favorite: ““Tech had a very long political honeymoon,” (former Google executive and left-leaning Chamber of Progress founder Adam Kovacevich said. “Many politicians and policymakers think that maybe they were too easy on tech for a long time, and now there is a countervailing desire to punish tech through either new laws or through regulatory action. And that is at odds with what consumers want.”

 

Seriously? Part of the problem with what’s considered monopolistic/anti-trust and what’s not is that it’s being viewed through a now quaint 20^th Century lens in an age where tech wields more power, influence, and control – and on a sweeping global level the likes of which the world has never witnessed before – than did any industry that preceded them. Given the censorship and deplatforming that we’ve been witnessing – and with other companies happily falling in line with the dictates/guidelines/tenets of the tech cabal – what needs to be scrutinized and addressed is the fact that what’s being created is a monoculture, and it may be time for new thinking, and 21^st Century regulations.

The cabal is not monopolistic?

Ever try to Choose a Phone that’s Surveillance Free? And with increased surveillance coming with every new OS ‘upgrade’ from the various platforms, Is China’s Social Credit System Coming to the US? And an expansion/consolidation of the surveillance and data-driven tyranny in the hands of the few – what to speak of unelected? We’ve warned about the overarching power of these global nation-states for years and we’re potentially dangerously close to that now-or-never moment.

 

Also always good to keep in mind that tech is the bailiwick of rebels who never quite believe in the status quo. There will be a backlash and since we are always of the mind that names have meaning, it will be…epic. Onward and forward.