In August 2020, Epic Games – the maker of Fortnite, a wildly popular mobile game, and many others – sued Apple because Apple doesn't allow any other payment processing to occur on Apple's operating systems.

Epic thought the commission Apple charges on in-game transactions (30%) too exorbitant, so they purposefully updated Fortnite to bypass the Apple payment mechanism (and pay Epic directly). Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, which prevented people from updating the app. See the Wikipedia article here for more details.

Here is my take on the story.

Update, September 2021: The trial verdict was mixed, but decided in Apple's favor on 9 of 10 counts; the court found Apple violated California's anti-steering law. Both sides will appeal.

Update, April 2023: The appellate court (3 judges) upheld the lower court rulings.

The Playground: an allegory

You have built a wonderful playground! It has lots of space, I see. You have put in a couple of swings, and a teeter-totter, too! Very nice. Can I play in your playground? I can!? For FREE!? Weee!

I see some other people have put in a couple of slides and a bean-bag toss. Can I play? Thanks. This is fun. Can I go on the tall slide? Oh, I have to pay extra for the tall slide? Ok, I don't want to spend anything right now, so I'll just enjoy the shorter slide for free.

I would like to build a merry-go-round in your playground. May I do that? In order to offset the expenses to build such an elaborate thing, I'll have to charge admission. Is that OK? Oh, you want a cut of the admission earnings? Other people with attractions in your playground don't pay you anything. Oh, I see; they don't charge admission or anything. I guess paying you some of my earnings is OK, since it's your land, and you built the playground with its nice fence to keep out the bad guys, and you hired the safety inspectors and the groundskeepers to make sure your playground is safe and clean.

Now, my merry-go-round is getting pretty popular. I've made a lot of money! But I'm tired of paying you what we originally agreed. I'm going to let people pay once they get on the merry-go-round, so you won't get anything, and I'll get to keep it all. Aren't I smart?

What do you mean, that violates our agreement? I agreed to pay you a percentage of admission, but I'm not charging admission anymore. Bwaaahahhaaa, I've fooled you!

Wait, you've locked the gates to my merry-go-round! Nobody can get in! I'm not making any money anymore. Boohoo. That's not fair. I'm going to sue!

Yes, I admit, I purposefully changed from charging admission to on-ride fees, which goes against our agreement, but that was just to prove a point. What point? That you're a big bad meanie, that's what! I'll get the court to force you to let me run my merry-go-round in your playground, using my rules instead of yours, and I won't have to pay you. But I'll still get to use your nice, clean, safe playground!

Why would the courts take my side? Because you're a monopoly! What do you mean, you would be a monopoly if nobody had a robot-colored wristband, or there weren't a bunch of other playgrounds? That's silly! Of course you're a monopoly because you have the biggest, bestest playground, and everyone uses it. Well, almost everyone. Everyone with a fruit-colored wristband, and that's a lot of people. I should be allowed to access all those customers for free.

What do you mean, I could move my merry-go-round to one of the other playgrounds, or even start my own playground? You've had such a big head start and have so much money from cheating attraction owners, I could never be as big as you or have as nice a playground! So the court should let me stay.

I'll get some other attraction-builders to join me. In fact, I'll get some of the other playground owners to chime in! Together, we'll yell loud enough that the court must agree with us. Even if the presence of the other playground owners sort of negates my entire monopoly claim. That's OK, we'll just yell louder and it will all work out for me. You'll see!