| Hi all, Gerrit De Vynck here. Last week, the maker of the megapopular game Fortnite launched a multi-pronged attack on Apple Inc.: First, Fortnite's owner, Epic Games, unveiled a new feature to get around the 30% Apple charges for in-game payments. Apple took the bait, banning the app for violating its policies. Almost immediately, Epic fired back with a prepared lawsuit and marketing campaign aimed at making Apple look like a greedy, evil monopolist. Fortnite, with 350 million players, knows how to get people's attention. Indeed, the scuffle set off a minor internet firestorm, representing one of the few credible threats to Apple's tight control on its massively lucrative App Store. But while Apple has gotten most of the attention, it's worth taking a closer look at the role of Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which uses many of the same practices. Shortly after Apple cut off Fortnite, Google also banned the app from its Play Store. Quickly, Epic sued Alphabet, too. The text of Epic's complaints against the two companies is similar, but in general Google's policies are a bit more permissive. Unlike iPhones, the Android operating system has ways for people to download apps outside of the main store. And since Google only makes the software and not the phone itself, device manufacturers like Samsung have room to put their own app stores into the phones they sell. In China, Google's Play Store has been blocked for years and local app stores have proliferated. But just because there are other ways to download apps, doesn't mean most people will use them. Epic points out that 90% of Fortnite downloads on Android devices happen via the Play Store. When the game maker tried abandoning the Play Store in 2018, it went crawling back 18 months later, complaining that Google issues too many warnings when users try to download an app through unofficial channels. Overall in the U.S., more than 95% of all mobile app spending goes through the Apple and Google stores, showing how unpopular alternatives are. Most galling to app makers, though, is the pricing. For years, Google has held the line along with Apple at charging 30% for app payments. The fact that the two giants haven't budged on pricing for so long shows there isn't enough competition, argue Epic and other critics. Dropping its fees could make Android more attractive to developers, who would start prioritizing Android over Apple's iOS and perhaps pass savings onto consumers, but Google shows no signs of starting a price war. It's happy with the 30%, just like Apple. All of this is especially relevant right now, with U.S. investigators building an antitrust case against Google. Android is being scrutinized by state attorneys general and could form part of a lawsuit against the company, people familiar with the investigations have said. Both Apple and Google say the fees they charge are fair for the services they offer developers. Security and privacy vetting ensures consumers don't lose trust with the app ecosystem. The stores make it easy for people to find and buy apps, and levels the playing field for small and big developers. Still, with mobile phones now the primary way people access the internet, the status quo of two companies charging apps nearly a third of their revenue simply for access to smartphones can easily seem wildly unfair. Would the internet have grown as it did if Microsoft Explorer charged 30% of every transaction done by web pages visited through its browser? Google often casts itself as a more open, accessible tech maker compared with the secretive, closed and expensive Apple. When it comes to its app store though, the two aren't so different. —Gerrit De Vynck | 
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