"The point in question is which of these two customers has standing to sue on the basis of the specific harm in question. Under US law the answer cannot be both."
This in fact not what SCOTUS wrote, SCOTUS clearly said that Apple may be sued by developers and consumers alike, the mere fact that apple has a monopolistic (They hold all the consumer supply in this market) and a monopsonistic(They satisfy all the demand from app devs on this market) position does not mean that the damages injured to both parties are in fact the same damages.
Under current US law multiple parties may not sue for the same damage. But at this point of time it is not decided whether the damages sustained by consumers in this lawsuit would be the same damages that app developers could sue for. It is entirely possible that Apple has swindled BOTH.
I don't understand this argument though. Surely if both app customers and app developers sued Apple they'd be suing over the exact same damages?
Either customers have their prices artificially increased, at which point app developers don't have damages as they're getting the money from customers, or else app developers are keeping prices low and taking the damage themselves, at which point customers aren't harmed.
It's still the same damages. Apple is taking money from a transaction between users and developers. It effectively comes equally from both sides of the transaction.
It's just like a sales tax, who does it come from, the consumer or the retailer? It really doesn't matter, the effect is the same.
The only problem is if it is accounted for twice. If it adds $10 to a transaction, you can't say both the consumer and developer are each harmed by $10. Better to say each are harmed by $5.
Apple is (allegedly) monopolising a market, which is not the same as skimming a percentage off transactions, and damages do not have to be estimated as a straightforward percentage of all transactions.
A monopoly has structural implications which could disadvantage both customers and developers in ways that go beyond paying x% Apple Tax on each sale.
For example - opportunity costs for both developers and customers, lock-in costs, costs to competitors who might have been able to operate a related market, specific losses for specific developers based on arbitrary, capricious, or self-serving app store exclusions, and so on.
None of this has been proven yet, all of it is debatable, and it could all be included in potential arguments.
This is bad news for Apple - not just because any judgement could be worth tens of billions, but because of potential bad PR and brand damage, which may happen however the final judgement goes. And also because of the distraction from more constructive goals.
The problem with the "monopolizing a market" idea is the fact that "Apple devices" is not a meaningful market, and within the actual "smartphone" market Apple very clearly does not have a monopoly.
Although the US antitrust laws do use the language of monopoly, they are broadly drafted and have been subject to a lot of judicial interpretation. Rather than monopoly, when considering antitrust questions it is sometimes better to think about "market power and … whether business conduct has or likely will have anticompetitive effects." [1]
"Market definition is least useful when market shares would not be strongly probative of market power or anticompetitive effect, while direct evidence as to market power or anticompetitive effect is available and convincing." Apple's control of the App Store has a direct anticompetitive effect in the secondary market for iOS apps. This is pretty clear from the fact that Apple explicitly prohibits some apps that compete with its own. The interesting question is whether the plaintiffs will succeed in proving that Apple's conduct is illegal, under the prevailing interpretation of the US antitrust laws.
Many apps are available exactly the same on Android as well, and nearly all apps have at least some equivalent on Android. The fact that an iOS app isn't literally compatible with Android, you can't take the exact same binary and use it on an Android phone, doesn't mean that iOS is a separate market category. You may as well say that UPPAbaby strollers are their own market category because UPPAbaby stroller accessories don't work on other strollers.
> You may as well say that UPPAbaby strollers are their own market category because UPPAbaby stroller accessories don't work on other strollers.
I wouldn't say UPPAbaby strollers are their own market, but I would say UPPAbaby stroller accessories are their own market, at least if they have and act on a legal way to prevent all others from making and selling accessories that interact with their strollers.
And notably Apple locks out some companies from the same kind of integrations that 1P apps get. The only use I have for Safari is that it’s the browser most apps open. And Apple won’t release Siri actions for music, putting Spotify at a big disadvantage.
Devs need to increase their prices to make a living to account for the 30% Apple tax. Higher prices hurt the consumers who do not want to pay that and shouldn't as the app developers do not even want their customers to pay that. Apple made it so, so it's hurting the customers.
Then again higher prices usually leads to less demand, hurting the devs even more (who will have to either eat the losses, or increase prices even more; goto 1). Apple made it so, so it's hurting the developers.
So Apple is hurting both, customers and developers.
But are app customers also Apple customers? Well, customers give a ton of money to Apple directly. It is comparable to a brick and mortar store where the customer does not actually pay the store, but the landlord of real estate in which the store is housed, who then keeps 30% and kicks over the rest to the actual store owner. And then the landlord claims it has no relationship whatsoever with those customers. Sounds ridiculous to me. Imagine credit card companies said they will no longer do any fraud prevention let alone fraud compensation because because all the money exchanged it between the customer and the vendor (or fraudster).
But it even goes further than this: said hypothetical brick and mortar store is in a company town, so all estate in the town is owned by the same landlord (the company in "company town"). Neither the store owner nor the customers have alternatives to do business in that town without the landlord's involvement. "But you can always move" says the landlord (i.e buy a non-iPhone as a customers and switch to another platform such as Android as a developer)...
Now the question is whether the court will find Apple is abusing their monopoly on "iOS App Stores" or if they are well within their right, because they do not actually have a monopoly as there is more than just iPhones and their App Store in the market.
Under current US law multiple parties may not sue for the same damage. But at this point of time it is not decided whether the damages sustained by consumers in this lawsuit would be the same damages that app developers could sue for. It is entirely possible that Apple has swindled BOTH.