The Fortnite makers, Epic Games, along with Netflix, Spotify and other tech companies have had enough of Apple and Google’s duopoly. This video will explain more about what’s going on. And if you’d like to read more about this situation, make sure to check out the links at the bottom of this description.
Most phones have an operating system ran by either Google or Apple. And that means all app purchases go through their app stores. And because of they have complete control over these two app stores, these companies are able to levy a 30% tax on transactions. That’s a crazy number. Normally transaction fees are 5% or lower. And when it comes to credit cards, 3% or lower. 30% is extremely high. That’s the power of having a duopoly on smartphone operating systems. All the customers are in their environment, so to get to those customers, you need to play by their rules.
But now other tech companies are becoming big enough with enough market power to start making their own rules. Companies like Spotify and Netflix have grown large enough with their own user bases that they are starting to test skipping the app stores. Instead of having their customers purchase through Google or Apple, they are redirected to their own sites where they set up a separate account and pay.
To learn more, make sure you watch the video above!
To read more about this topic, check out the following links:
https://avc.com/2018/08/the-30-tax/
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/
Watch the video above for more!
And remember, stay Fallible investors!