Summary

Gruber argues that the European Commission's approval of Apple's new App Store terms — which still leave Apple collecting commissions and fees — exposes the DMA's true purpose: not to open competition for developers, but to erect a bureaucratic footprint and collect fines from Big Tech. He dismisses the EC's stated ideals of 'competition and choice' as lip service that misled developers into thinking the law had noble goals. The opacity of the DMA's text, he contends, is not accidental — it reflects the law's actual intent. He contrasts this with Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act, which achieved cleaner compliance, no withheld features, and no collateral damage to users.

Key Insight

The DMA's purpose was never developer freedom — it was bureaucratic self-justification and fine collection, and the EC's satisfaction with Apple's deeply imperfect compliance is the clearest proof of that.

Spicy Quotes (click to share)

• 9

  The only actual point of the DMA is for the European Commission to impose unnecessary bureaucracy and inconvenience into major markets where it previously had no footprint.

• 8

  They had no noble goal. They just wanted to erect a bureaucratic structure that clearly shows 'The European Commission was here and did something.'

• 9

  The murky impenetrableness of the law is a reflection of its actual intent: murky impenetrable bureaucracy.

• 6

  Impose copious fines on Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Meta; inconvenience those companies and their users in the EU; all to show that something has been done.

• 5

  Japanese iOS users get all the 'good parts' of Apple's regulatory compliance that EU users do, with none of the rather severe hindrances.

• 2

  My view jibes with the reality of how it's worked out.

Tone

critical, opinionated, contrarian