The opening tableau in Wall Street Journal writer Higgins’ narrative is a federal courtroom, Covid-19 era, in which Apple CEO Tim Cook faces a carefully mounted challenge by Tim Sweeney, publisher of the wildly popular video game Fortnite. Sweeney charged that Apple was a monopolist, an argument, Higgins writes, that had some merit: “With the advent of the iPhone, in order for other businesses to gain access to its marketplace, Apple had set up a drawbridge for all of the companies that wanted to make money through it.” That drawbridge was largely monetary: Apple took 30% of revenues for the sale of every app, “akin to a tax for breathing their air,” protecting its practice inside a “Walled Garden” that other entrepreneurs longed to storm. It didn’t help that throughout the app sales ecosystem, favorable rates were being extended to some app makers but not others, with Sweeney stating, “We’re all in for a prolonged battle if Apple tries to keep their monopoly and 30% by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet.” To complicate matters, after the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, Apple removed the conservative social media app Parler, Amazon dropped Parler from its servers, and Facebook and Twitter shut down Donald Trump’s account; then tech magnate Elon Musk entered the fray, pushing the argument that the Big Four were not only monopolizing markets but also controlling free speech, and in doing so he was “able to do something that Tim Sweeney…failed to do: frame Apple’s power in terms that resonated beyond the business.” Though, as Higgins chronicles, Apple survived most legal challenges, the debate continues as to whether the company and other giants are true monopolies—and just how much control over speech they exert.
