Elon Musk is a man who we suspect enjoys the fact that his off-the-cuff statements causes big ripples: initiating wobbles in the stock market, nudging cryptocurrency values off a cliff, and rallying his hoards of very partisan fans. However, his latest headline-grabbing announcement – calling Apple’s App Store policy a “de facto global tax on the Internet” – sees him siding with Epic Games, who are currently awaiting the verdict on the lawsuit they brought against Apple. They’re challenging the App Store rules, where app developers must pay 15 or 30% commission to Apple on purchases made within apps.
Music industry ears prick up whenever a big tech platform tussles with a company making a successful creative product, but his claim is extra-meaningful to some major elements of the music industry. Spotify’s ongoing rebuke of Apple’s app commission policy is becoming increasingly forceful; and the European Commission’s view is that Apple “abused its dominant position for the distribution of music streaming apps.”
Musk’s pubic missives may often have a whiff of the absurd about them – he’s currently also denying that he demanded to replace Tim Cook as Apple’s CEO in an F-bomb-laden phone call – but he’s a savvy operator among the tech gods. His latest blunt statement may be seen by some as an indication of the way the wind is blowing as we await the result of the Epic lawsuit.
Image by Laurenz Heymann/Unsplash
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