twleve

mall that lets vendors set up shop to profit without paying any rent to cover the shared costs of running a marketplace.

Epic Games and the EU's Spotify don't want to build their own platforms or use a free platform like the web. They just don't want to pay Apple for delivering a platform of premium customers and building and maintaining their development tools. 

The are, effectively, App Store squatters."

Nailed it.

The worst part of the EU's strategy of "punishing the winners" in competitive markets is that it stifles innovation in the marketplaces within their own purview. Doing big things, creating something out of nothing, and taking big risks with no guarantee of success or profitability requires an incredible investment in time and resources but also massive sustained commitment to seeing it through to completion. Who is paying for this? Those who take the risks and bear the risks and expenses are the ones paying. If the rewards for being successful are eroded or hijacked by regulators who step in after the success is seemingly achieved, and effectively take over control of the company and how it conducts business, why would other innovators take on those risks in the first place? Success is neither guaranteed nor assured going forward. Disruptive innovation can happen to anyone, except perhaps things owned by or controlled by regulators and governments. 

Apple is a for-profit company in several highly competitive markets. Each of these markets have strong competition. Apple isn't necessarily the marketshare leader in the markets it serves. They are however the quality leader and most admired competitor in the struggle for customers and they have very high customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is a direct and measurable feedback loop. High customer loyalty means your customers like what you're doing and are confident that you will continue to do the same in the future. Why would anyone want to mess with this fundamental and customer driven regulatory mechanism and break the customer feedback loop? Once you've taken customers who decide whether you survive or go bust out of the control loop the system is broken and you've done nothing other than to create another regulated public utility, i.e., the customer no longer has a choice. 

If the regulators truly believe that they are entitled to manipulate the competitors and decide who wins and who loses they should also accept responsibility for compensating competitors who fail in their attempts at achieving success. If you're deciding who wins and who loses you have responsibility to all parties in the regulated system you've created, winners and losers. I hear that Apple may have invested around $10B USD in their attempt to build a vehicle. They failed. So when should Apple expect a big check to arrive in the mail from the EU regulators to compensate Apple for their loss? After all, they are manipulating the competitive landscape in a way that rewards Epic and Spotify for their inability to compete based on their own abilities, merits, and inability to create their own systems and infrastructure needed to control their own destiny, like Apple has done. 

Apple invested billions of dollars and a large amount of time and resources to crawl out from under Intel's and Google's thumbs by creating their own chips and mapping software so they could better control their own destiny. Apple never called in the regulators to force Intel to change their terms and conditions with Apple when Intel was their only source of chips. Apple recognized that they were not happy to be beholden to Intel so they did something about it. On their own. Using their own money. That's how competition should work.