Billionaire companies want to pull up the ladder behind them – POLITICO

In 2013, when the Association for Competitive Technology released its first State of the App Economy in Europe, mobile app-based software businesses were generating roughly €10 billion and sustaining more than 700,000 jobs. In 2022, they were generating more than €290 billion annually (2,900 percent growth) and sustaining 1.8 million jobs (250 percent growth). The transformative success of curated online marketplaces like app stores has reshaped how technology is used in our daily lives.

But a handful of billion-pound mobile app companies, from gaming to online dating to streaming music, want to change the conditions that made them successful in the first place, pulling up the ladder behind them. In ad campaigns, in closed-door lobbying meetings and even at big media events, they call on regulators to redesign the system so that it benefits them, not consumers and small businesses.

They argue that the fees the app stores charge are exorbitant, completely sidestepping the fact that only the largest pay. In fact, the vast majority of small developers pay nothing. And yet, the billionaires’ ‘solution’ is to break the mobile ecosystem by removing security checks and restrictions on third-party app stores and sideloading.