Apple's iOS is inhibiting the growth of the future internet but regulators can remedy that by forcing Apple into competition in app distribution and payments
Chapter One: The Creation of Today's Internet and the Needs of Tomorrow's — One of the neat things about the internet is who created it, why, and how. Tweets: @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @pierskicks , @zoescaman , @dsilverman , @ctothejones , @ballmatthew , @benedictevans , @akruglov , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @ricardobsalinas , @ballmatthew , @ballmatthew , @timsweeneyepic , @micapital2 , @lucas_shaw , and @valuations_ Tweets: Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : Apple's policies are designed to stifle platforms, such as Roblox or Snapchat, which would intermediate it from developers and consumers. This feature, not a bug. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : [NEW] Apple, Its Control Over the iPhone, The Internet, And Yes, The Metaverse — An essay on platforms, power, prosperity, principles, and profits. https://www.matthewball.vc/... @pierskicks : Finished this bad boy, one of my favourite MB pieces yet. An incisive, seemingly irrefutable analysis of how Apple is blocking the organic evolution of the internet. Perhaps the most important anti-competitve case of our era, it's undoubtedly important to track its evolution. https://twitter.com/... Zoe Scaman / @zoescaman : Another excellent piece from .@ballmatthew on how Apple is proving to be the ultimate gatekeeper to the future evolution of the internet (i.e. the metaverse) A great insight into why the Epic vs Apple battle of 2020 was so important https://www.matthewball.vc/... Dwight Silverman / @dsilverman : Long, but worth your time to read. https://twitter.com/... Colin Jones / @ctothejones : Well done, @ballmatthew. A relentless, methodical cataloguing of Apple's anti-competitive behavior on iOS + a deceptively simple solution - make the App Store “opt out”. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : But again, this is a feature of iOS, not a bug. Jobs is very clear: developers should not use cross-platform development tools, but instead iOS tools. They should make the best iOS apps, not the best apps. And this will be better for users, and thus better for the developers. https://twitter.com/... Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : Lots of good ideas here. Some thoughts: https://twitter.com/... Alex Kruglov / @akruglov : This is an absolutely fantastic essay by @ballmatthew. Especially remarkable since Matthew uses an Android phone and wasn't already an expert in this space. If you don't believe me, @TimSweeneyEpic agrees. Super long, but worth reading in full, including the drop-down portions https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : There are many other issues, but the inability for new platforms to emerge and support highly profitable developers is the most problematic. The Internet is full of and so great because so many value-added middle-platforms could emerge. Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : This isn't/won't be true. And the mobile gaming ecosystem on iOS is massively bigger because developers use Unity, even when iOS drives the majority of their revenues. This is because Unity allows a developer to easily reach the entire global market. More players, rev, investment Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : I started this essay in August 2020 and it took me months to get a good handle on it and to stop discovering additional issues @benthompson has been chronicling this for months, but it was unbelievable hearing how many small, and equally powerful companies are terrified of Apple Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : In effect, a Roblox dev could only substantially grow their revenue share if Apple built its own Roblox-like platform, which Apple operated at break-even (which the App Store was intended to do but doesn't) and it didn't pay Apple's App Store (which all Apple services do) Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : Success of cross-platform tools/experiences may suggest Apple's control isn't a problem. But this assessment ignores Apple's attempt to ban Unreal, its success stymying web-based rendering engines and cloud games, anti-platform policies and store fees Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : This position is a kind of circuitous monopoly logic. Developers are only better off developing only for Apple is if Apple's OS runs all relevant devices, its standards power all experiences, and Apple successfully develops the devices or services for every possible category. Ricardo Salinas Pliego / @ricardobsalinas : Amazing and eye opening piece on one pernicious monopoly : Apple https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : Apple talks a lot about the “open web” as an alternative However, Apple both powers and distributes the browsers used to access it, determines which standards and capabilities these browsers afford, and how a web app can interact with the user. That's not open. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : This piece from Roblox's S-1 is particularly interesting (IMAGE ONE), and contrasts well with who can and cannot / wants to and does actually contest Apple (IMAGE TWO) https://twitter.com/... Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic : Matthew Ball returns with another awesome essay on future platforms and the battle over closed ecosystems! https://twitter.com/... @micapital2 : Maybe confirmation bias at play here but I think this is the best thing I've read this year. Must read for understanding Apple, iOS, the app store and the digital economy. https://twitter.com/... Lucas Shaw / @lucas_shaw : This is a great essay on the future of the internet, and will likely be cited as evidence of Apple as a monopoly. Its only flaw is the misuse of semicolons. https://twitter.com/... Valuations / @valuations_ : Required reading for anyone interested in $RBLX $U or the Metaverse. I can't imagine using any hardware other than Apple, but also bothered by their stranglehold on a digital world that should enable creative expansion, but is incentivized to inhibit. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Matthew Ball's essay lands in the middle of a running argument about Apple's control of iOS. Earlier reporting had already documented the potentially anti-competitive ways the App Store restricts consumers and third parties, and Ben Thompson had framed Epic's fight with Apple as a test of whether every self-favoring Apple decision invites scrutiny of its power. Ball widens that lens from developer economics to the internet itself: his claim is that Apple's policies are designed to stifle platforms such as Roblox, blocking the next generation of internet services before they can form.
The essay also functions as a policy proposal ahead of the curve — it calls for regulators to force competition in app distribution and payments years before the EU's DMA produced exactly that outcome, with Apple responding through proposed App Store changes under the DMA. Read against later coverage of how Apple uses its WebKit monopoly to constrain the web, the piece reads as an early statement of the case regulators would eventually pick up.
First-order effects
- Apple faces a direct challenge to its App Store model: if regulators force open distribution and payments, the store's role as the only channel to iPhone users — which earlier analysis argued is why developers show up at all — collapses into one option among several.
- Platform companies like Roblox, which Ball names explicitly as stifled by Apple's policies, gain a credible path to running their own payment and distribution rails inside iOS rather than routing around Apple's rules.
Second-order effects
- Epic's litigation becomes a forcing function regardless of its court outcome: as Thompson argued, each Apple decision favoring itself over society hands critics and regulators more material, raising pressure on Apple to concede distribution or payment terms preemptively.
- Android's more permissive distribution model becomes a competitive selling point for developers weighing where to launch new platforms, shifting bargaining power between the two mobile ecosystems.
Third-order effects
- If forced competition in distribution and payments holds, the access layer of the internet stops being owned by a single gatekeeper — the same logic later applied to Apple's browser-engine controls suggests regulation will target every chokepoint between users and the open web.
- Apple's brand promise of a curated, secure device would be tested by mandated openness, pushing the company to compete on hardware and services quality rather than on control of the software channel.
The trend: Mobile platform gatekeeping is moving from private rule-making to regulated competition, with app distribution and payments as the first chokepoints regulators are forcing open.