A U.S. appeals court announced on Thursday that it will review a lower court’s decision to decertify a massive class-action lawsuit against Apple, potentially allowing millions of iPhone users to collectively sue the company for allegedly monopolizing the app distribution market and overcharging consumers.
In a short order, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to examine the ruling that stripped class-action status from a group of nearly 200 million consumers, who allege Apple’s restrictive App Store policies resulted in roughly $20 billion in inflated prices for apps and in-app purchases.
U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, ruled in October that the customers failed to provide a model “capable of reliably showing classwide injury and damages in one stroke” by matching Apple accounts to consumers, while limiting the number of “unharmed” consumers in the class.
The three plaintiffs asked the appeals court to overturn the decision and revive the class action before their individual claims are decided. Class actions can expose companies to far greater damages than individual lawsuits.
The lawsuit, filed in 2011, accuses Apple of violating U.S. antitrust law by too tightly restraining how customers download apps and pay for transactions, causing overcharges for apps and in-app content on their iPhones and iPads.
Apple told the appeals court that the plaintiffs still can pursue individual claims and that review was unwarranted because the decertification order turned on fact-specific rulings, not unsettled law.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the vast majority of developers who pay Apple an App Store commission, pay 15%. That amounts to 12 cents of “inflated prices” for non-free apps on average. So, if you bought 50 apps for your iPhone, it would cost you, on the average, a total of $40. Halving Apple’s commission would reduce that price to $37. Removing Apple’s commission entirely would reduce that price to $34.
Here you see the absolute horror of “inflated prices” caused by Apple trying to cover costs to run their App Store for 1.4+ billion iOS/iPadOS users. A total of $3-$6 per every 50 apps, on average. How can any app consumer survive such abject gouging?!!!
How much did it cost developers to have their apps burned onto CDs, boxed, shipped, displayed on store shelves prior to Apple remaking the world for the better for umpteenth time? Does Apple not have costs to store, review, organize, surface, and distribute apps to 1+ billion users? – MacDailyNews, July 30, 2021
Ultimately, the end user pays, regardless.
Either Apple continues to take App Store commissions to pay for their infrastructure costs or they increase hardware and/or subscription prices to pay for the government interference.
As usual, Big Government is a meddling middleman just attempting to move costs around in order to appeal to their base: “We fought the big, bad corporation meanies and saved you oh-so-much money on your apps (a whole 12 cents per). (We won’t talk about your other costs – hardware, subscription rates, etc. – that were increased in order to compensate for our meddling). We think you’re stupid. Vote for us.”
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