Imagine a shopping mall where the landlord is the only merchant selling wares. Customers may not notice, understand or even care. They might even like the apparent convenience. Product suppliers are less likely to appreciate the arrangement. They would expect to earn more money and make customers happier by trading under their own shingle
This scenario is playing out in Big Tech. On Monday, a California jury sided with the video game maker Epic Games in its dispute with Google.
Epic had sued Google arguing that it had improperly used dominance gained from the Android mobile device operating system to become a monopoly gatekeeper of smartphone apps. Notably, Epic pointed out that the arrangement allows Google to receive as much as 30 per cent of the payments for in-app purchases.