Is the grocery store "double dipping" because it takes money from you to buy the food, and also takes money from companies to place products in special promotional end-of-aisle displays? Back when people bought physical newspapers, were newspapers "double dipping" because they charged both for the physical print copy, as well as charging companies to place advertisements there? Were Nintendo and Sony "double-dipping" because they charged consumers to buy their consoles, as well as charging cartridge makers for the chip required for the game to actually work?
Is Google "double-dipping" because they're selling you a phone and then using it to advertise to you?
The iPhone has the Apple Tax on apps priced into it already. If they didn't have the revenue from Epic, they'd have to either find sources of revenue (like spying on you to sell you more stuff) or reduce the quality of the software / hardware.
> Is the grocery store "double dipping" because it takes money from you to buy the food, and also takes money from companies to place products in special promotional end-of-aisle displays? Back when people bought physical newspapers, were newspapers "double dipping" because they charged both for the physical print copy, as well as charging companies to place advertisements there?
No.
> Were Nintendo and Sony "double-dipping" because they charged consumers to buy their consoles, as well as charging cartridge makers for the chip required for the game to actually work?
No.
> Is Google "double-dipping" because they're selling you a phone and then using it to advertise to you?
Yes.
I can go to any other store and get the same food at a price reflecting the competition between them where one gets kick-backs on the backend as well and another doesn't.
With consoles the game makers (non-exclusives) can take it or leave it in regards to specific consoles as long as there is enough of them.
Android and iOS are two separate phone makers (or at least OS in one case), but that isn't enough to sustain market competition on any granularity, so they can make arbitrary choices with regards to charging at all ends and still have a captive market. Consoles would probably be here without PC.
> The iPhone has the Apple Tax on apps priced into it already. If they didn't have the revenue from Epic, they'd have to either find sources of revenue (like spying on you to sell you more stuff) or reduce the quality of the software / hardware.
> With consoles the game makers (non-exclusives) can take it or leave it in regards to specific consoles as long as there is enough of them. ...Consoles would probably be here without PC.
Your argument here seems to be something like this: "Game makers have an alternative to all consoles, in the form of PCs. They therefore have a legitimate choice to leave the platform entirely if they found console makers' charges abusive. The fact that they don't is evidence that the charges console makers make to game makers is not abusive; or at least, evidence that no intervention is required."
This thread is specifically about the ~$200M Apple get for Fortnite. In the case of Fortnite, they have at least two alternates to iOS: Consoles and PCs. So Epic certainly does have an option to leave the iOS platform entirely; and thus, by your logic, the fact that Epic chose to make an iOS version of Fortnite anyway is evidence that the "Apple tax" is not abusive -- or at least, evidence that no intervention is required.
> The fact that they don't is evidence that the charges console makers make to game makers is not abusive; or at least, evidence that no intervention is required."
No, you have cause and effect backwards. They don't because they can't without losing out on cross-platform games.
Consoles have one job, games. They can capture consumers on exclusives, or being competitive on cross-platform games.
iOS have half (not percent-wise, but provider-wise) of a phone-market, in which games exist.
Gamers can't choose a gaming platform outside of what phone they already have, without switching phones and all the extra second-order effect that has. So much less elasticity there.
But as far as I'm concerned they can look into Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft anti-competitive behavior too, I wouldn't be hard to persuade the effect exists there too, albeit to a lesser extent.
Is Google "double-dipping" because they're selling you a phone and then using it to advertise to you?
The iPhone has the Apple Tax on apps priced into it already. If they didn't have the revenue from Epic, they'd have to either find sources of revenue (like spying on you to sell you more stuff) or reduce the quality of the software / hardware.