The funny thing is they have 2x consumer class actions (US + UK) alleging these 30% fees were always a ripoff, they just became a slam dunk so that’ll be tens of billions they have to pay back!
Genuine question as I'm seeing this sentiment a lot in these threads, and I must be missing something.
What you've just described would be the single greatest punishment to an entity in the (admittently recently established) history of case-law, would upend the tech sector (maybe justly), lay off 10s of thousands and effectively stop work at downstream supply chains.
I get that this is the point of the punishment. However, do you think politicians, investors, lawyers with controlling stake, The DOD with security integrations, would allow that to happen?
Put another way, do you think the rule of law exists for the hyper rich when the current admin put.....Linda McMahon on the presidents cabinet?
Well, theoretically, Apple would have to reimburse the people it stole from, if the fees were found to be illegal. Presumably this would mean every app developer getting reimbursed some of that 30% Apple Tax, or every Apple customer getting refunded some of their Apple purchases, depending on which way the court goes. This could be a very, very large number.
Not so much about punishment, as repayment. However, it's not unusual for courts to also add a punishment element, especially if the offending party knew it was offending (as in this case).
And yes, I think the politicians would let this go through, because "every Apple customer" is a lot of voters.
What does any of this have to do with consumers being ripped off then reimbursed for software?
It would only be “the greatest punishment” because it is a subset of what Apple was able to obtain with their illegal methods. They billed hundreds of billions in fees.
