š The Epic Conspiracy (w/ Christian Handley)
What happened on Tech Twitter last week - August 9 - 15

Yo!Ā āļøĀ IāmĀ Brett! I am a Product Manager and former Cognitive Science researcher.Ā Social StudiesĀ is a semi-weekly newsletter for people building great products for humans. It includes recaps of what happened on Tech Twitter every week plus deep analysis using frameworks from Psychology, Economics, and the other Social Sciences.
šØ Help me make Social Studies even better! Please fill outĀ this quick surveyĀ for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card!
ā¤ļø This weekās top story was written by my good friend Christian Handley!
⨠TLDR
šØ Apple and Google dropped the hammer - Epic enabled their own payments processor in Fortnite. Apple and Google responded by suspending that app.
š Epic was planning it all along - Fortnite retaliated with a couple antitrust lawsuits and a marketing campaign timed perfectly with Google and Apple antitrust hearings.
š¤ Appleās value has been diminishing - Apple has been taking 30% tax on revenue from developers for 12 years. But theyāre delivering substantially less value these days.
𦮠Underdogs usually become abusers eventually - āAbsolute power corrupts absolutelyā as they say.
šØ Apple and Google dropped the hammer on Epic
Epic Games added a feature in the iOS and Android versions of Fortnite that allowed them collect revenue on digital goods directly through their own payment processing service instead of Appleās. As an added incentive, they gave users a permanent 20% discount on the V-Bucks (digital currency) they could purchase.Ā
As a result, Apple removed the app from their store. Google shortly followed suit.


š Epic was planning it all along
Epic responded swiftly with antitrust lawsuits against Google and Apple plus a full ad campaign parodying AppleāsĀ famous 1984 Big Brother ad.


How were they able to respond so quickly withĀ fully formed legalĀ Ā briefings, an in-game event, and meticulously worded press releases within a couple days?
Could this all have been planned to take advantage of the current antitrust proceedings against Big Tech in order to get better terms on their app store agreement?
*Puts on tin foil hat*
Yes.
Epic also conspicuously left the consoles out of this whole discussion, despite the fact that the vast majority of their existing users are on these closed platforms. This feels like further evidence that this was a premeditated move.



š¤ Appleās value has been diminishing
Apple has been taking 30% tax on revenue from developers for 12 years. Has Apple been providing developers that much value consistently all this time?
Nope.
And thatās why Epic (and Hey) has been outspoken lately.
At the launch of the App Store in 2008, there were only 500 apps. Appleās 30% revenue cut and $99/year developer fee really did go a long way. There werenāt many other products to help developers with payments, discovery, and all the other things that Apple did.
Things have changed.

With 2.2 million apps in the App Store, developers are on their own when it comes to growth. At the same time, the explosion in developer tools and other products over the years has also made developers less dependent on Appleās infrastructure and services.
This is the backdrop of Appleās developer relations. Diminished value-add. Increased rent seeking.

Tom Warren @tomwarren
Epic Games is trolling Apple with a "1984" Fortnite video. It's pretty... epic https://t.co/4a8DJfJa5b
𦮠Underdogs usually become abusers eventually
YouTuber Jim Sterling had a great take (via Daring Fireball):
Screw the lot of them. Yes, Apple and Google need taking down from their high towers. Yes, Epic Games has a point as it sues to keep Fortnite on mobile devices. But absolutely all of them are as bad as each other.
Itās the natural order of things for underdogs to become abusers. As it was said, āabsolute power corrupts absolutely.ā
Appleās original ad was attacking IBM for its abuses and now Epic is using the same ad to attack Apple.
$17B Epic has a long way to go before it reaches $2T Appleās scale. That said, itās not inconceivable that weād see another ad in the future blaming Epic.
š Further reading




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Erik Torenberg @eriktorenberg
I agree. Colleges are screwed. The elite ones aren't screwed. They'll be fine. But their best days are behind them. Competitors will emerge, and they'll lose cultural dominance. They're like a tech incumbent harvesting what remains of its monopoly, but no longer innovating š https://t.co/amusFGPKpu


āļø Thanks
Shout out again to Christian Handley for helping pull this weekās story together!
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