The UK's competition watchdog is moving to break Apple and Google's "effective duopoly" over mobile app stores — forcing open the gates that let two companies tax up to 30% of every digital transaction and control which apps reach users. American consumers face the same toll road. Washington does nothing.
The Competition and Markets Authority announced proposals to let developers steer users away from Apple and Google's app stores to make purchases elsewhere — something currently banned by Apple and restricted by Google. At least 90% of UK mobile devices run on these two platforms, giving them gatekeeper power over both commerce and speech.
The stakes are straightforward. Apple and Google take commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases like subscriptions. That cost gets passed to consumers or suffocates developers. The Guardian reported that Spotify refuses to sell subscriptions through Apple's App Store because it won't eat the fee or pass it along to users — British subscribers have to go to the desktop website instead. That's not a free market. That's a toll road with two toll collectors.
CMA executive director Will Hayter said the move would introduce "competitive pressure in a vital part of the mobile ecosystem that is otherwise sorely lacking such pressure."
The regulator is also considering requiring Apple to open its near-field communication technology, which would let developers offer contactless payments inside iOS apps — breaking Apple Pay's lock on tap-to-pay.
Google claims it already made the changes the CMA is proposing, pointing to new Play Store terms this month that allow steering outside the platform, subject to restrictions, plus changes to its fee structure. Apple took the opposite line. The Guardian reported an Apple spokesperson warning that steering "undermined protections for users and opened the door to scams and circumventing parental controls." Apple did not respond to Reuters' request for comment. The safety argument is the same one every monopoly makes: trust us, because only we can protect you.
The Coalition for App Fairness — whose members include Spotify and Match Group — criticized the CMA's proposal to let Apple and Google charge fees even for allowing steering, saying any charges should be justified by "transparent data" explaining the tech companies' actual costs. Follow the money: a "steering fee" is just a smaller toll for the privilege of escaping the bigger toll.
This follows the CMA's October decision to designate Apple and Google as having "strategic market status" in mobile markets, giving the watchdog power to set bespoke conduct rules. Reuters noted the CMA said any steering fees "would need to be fair and reasonable, and should be lower than current app store commissions, with savings passed on to consumers or reinvested in innovation."
If British regulators can identify and act on a duopoly that controls 90% of the mobile market, what exactly is Washington waiting for? Apple and Google run the same gatekeeper model in America — the same 30% tax, the same power to decide which apps live or die. The difference is who's paying whom, and who's getting paid to look the other way.
