The App Store As We Know It Is Dead, Thanks To Epic Games (And Europe)

A court ruling against Google signals yet another blow against the traditional app store model. Epic Games has won its antitrust court case against Google. A jury just that Google acquired and maintained monopoly power in the Android app distribution and in-app billing markets everywhere except China, that Google unreasonably restrained trade in those markets, that Google unlawfully tied the use of Google Play to Google Play Billing, and that Epic was injured by these actions.

“Today’s verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers around the world,” Epic on its website. “It proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation. ” Google disputes this, of course, and says it will appeal the ruling.

“We plan to challenge the verdict,” a spokesman The Verge. “Android and Google Play provide more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform. ” But this and similar rulings, along with the European Union’s Digital Markets act, are slowly but surely eroding Google’s and Apple’s power to control app distribution—and monetization—on the mobile platforms that they’ve built.

15 years of how we get apps on to our phones is going to change, and change dramatically. 15 years of who makes money off apps will also change. But it won’t happen overnight.

And it’s not all due to Epic’s epic multi-year legal efforts. In 2007 Steve Jobs launched the iPhone. In July of 2008, Apple introduced the App Store, and in October of the same year, Google launched Google Play, the Android equivalent.

Since that time, the duopoly of app distribution and nexus of in-app monetization has ruled most of the mobile world (except for China) and sucked massive profits from developers and consumers. In January of this year, Apple senior vice president of services that “developers selling digital goods and services on the App Store have earned more than $320 billion since the platform’s 2008 launch. ” Apple takes 15-30% of most in-app purchases on the App Store.

Google the sale of around $40 billion/year in in-app purchases on Google Play, and takes a similar percentage. Most of that is pure profit, after some expenses for running the stores and processing the payments. But two major efforts are starting to force Apple and Google to change.

In the European Union, the will force technology “gatekeepers” like Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft to “allow third parties to interoperate with their services, share data with companies using their platforms, treat all services and products offered by third parties on their platforms equally alongside their own services, and much more. ” This means that third party app stores will have to receive room from Google and Apple to operate on a level playing field, and according to the DMA’s timeline, that will have to happen sometime in 2024. The second major effort has been spearheaded by Epic Games in the United States, which took both and Google to court over antitrust complaints regarding commission requirements on in-app payments.

This as been ongoing for more than three years, and while , it did get a court to order Apple to “allow developers to provide third-party payment options in apps. ” Apple has enabled that capability in select markets where it has been required to, such as the and South Korea, but is that ruling in the U. S.

Regardless, the colliding international and domestic legislation and lawsuits are slowly but surely eroding both Apple’s and Google’s ability to maintain a lock one one of the most lucrative markets in technology history. What does that mean? Eventually, we should be able to get apps from almost anywhere, just like we always used to in the desktop era. Eventually, app publishers should be able to select their own payment processing systems or third-party payment processing systems, just like they always have been able to do in the desktop era.

That should usher in an era of increased competitiveness on app distribution and monetization, which should in turn reduce Apple’s and Google’s fees. Most likely, however, both Google and Apple will remain the largest app distributors and payment facilitators globally for some time, and probably a long time. They’re known.

They’re trusted. They’ll probably always be the safest and easiest choice, because they have a huge amount of experience in vetting apps for malicious code, and because they can easily embed app distribution and monetization deep into the fabric of Android and iOS. So this is not a death knell for the App Store or Google Play.

But it is a warning that the happy days of massive profitability for sitting at the dual centers of the mobile app universe will become somewhat less rich. And that competition will be available if they don’t continue to provide an excellent and efficient service. It’ll take time and legal wrangling to make this all happen.

But it’s clearly where the courts and the industry is trending. .