App Store guidelines and policies were created for the world as it was a decade ago, and Apple should rewrite them for a very different world today
M.G. Siegler / 500ish :
Context & Ripple Effects
Writing in mid-2020, M.G. Siegler argues that Apple is enforcing rules whose lineage stretches back to the 2009 FCC fight over Google Voice, drafted for an App Store that no longer exists at today's scale. The piece landed during an unusually active stretch: within weeks, Apple put live changes letting developers challenge guidelines and stopping bug-fix updates from being held over unrelated violations (policy changes Apple confirmed were now live).
The argument matters because it reframes the debate from specific grievances to governance itself — whether a single company should keep writing and enforcing platform law unilaterally. The subsequent cadence bears this out: more guideline clarifications around in-app purchases and iOS 14 features followed that fall, and years later Apple was still amending the rules, adding a provision allowing removal of neglected apps in saturated categories.
First-order effects
- App developers gain faster recourse under the changes that follow: bug-fix updates no longer stall on unrelated guideline disputes, and Apple formally opens a channel to challenge the guidelines themselves.
- Apple's App Review team faces pressure to treat the guidelines as a maintained product — clarified, versioned, and publicly explained — rather than a static rulebook applied discretionarily.
Second-order effects
- Antitrust investigators gain a cleaner narrative hook: if even sympathetic voices like Siegler say the rules are outdated, the case for external oversight of gatekeeper terms strengthens.
- Rival app platforms can differentiate on process — advertising predictable review timelines and appeal rights against Apple's decade-old baseline, turning policy transparency into competitive positioning.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, platform governance converges on continuous, contestable rule-making with regulators shaping the agenda — a structural shift from unilateral curation toward negotiated platform law.
- Curation logic drifts from gatekeeping new submissions toward actively pruning the existing catalog, raising the risk that long-tail apps become disposable if they stop attracting customers or updates.
The trend: App Store governance is moving from static, decade-old rules written by one gatekeeper to continuously revised, externally pressured policy — with Apple's own update cadence as the evidence.