So, lets say I spend 400 million to buy in some technology in the late 90s. I then spend millions refining it into a product, indeed a series of products. I spin one bit of it off and use that to miniaturise the technology meaning my big tech now runs on something in your pocket. It’s a substantial feat that requires the best engineers and the risk is huge. Everyone, especially incumbents, are saying I’ll fail. But I don’t fail and I then spend time building content and a store for other people to sell stuff on the platform I’ve literally invested billions to build.
Just like a brick and mortar store, my investment has created a place where people come to shop. Where they come to buy products, not just the ones I make, but others too. And just like a brick and mortar store, I charge a commission on every sale. Considering the markup on similar stores to mine in the early 2000s was 70%, I figure 30% across the board will make me super-competitive. And it does.
The combination of my stuff plus the stuff I’m selling on the store is a winner. Now….I’m not the biggest seller of stuff. I have competitors who own 90% of the market – one in particular who licensed out their tech and have dozens of manufacturers making stuff for them and they alone command about 70% of the total market – and they operate a store with millions more people.
But I’m doing ok. I built this platform from scratch, built the store from nothing, took the risks when everyone else was saying no and watched as the government let everyone steal from me. But it’s a dog eat dog world. I’ll just go on. I just want to know where the government was when I was struggling. Nowhere. As fecking usual.
But there’s trouble in paradise. A couple of the folks who sell on my store and on other stores want me to remove my commission. In fact, they actually want to take space in my store and build their own little concession stand to sell stuff….and I lose out on my commission and I don’t even get rent for the mini-store. And this is after they used my store to grow bigger, after they made my customers pay for their stuff. They’re calling it unfair that I make money off of the thing I built while, paradoxically, making money off the thing I built.
Someone please explain it to me, because I’ve removed one dude for literally setting up his mini-mart inside my store. I mean, these aren’t people who are struggling. They’re doing really well, even with my commission.
And now this….
EU Likely to Charge Apple With Anti-Competitive Behavior This Week
You see, the danger to innovation doesn’t come from not allowing folks to sell stuff for free on my store. And there’s no danger to competition because these folks are sharecropping on my store, they’re not building an entire platform for sales.
The danger comes from regulation like this meaning that I’ll be less likely invest the 400 million in the first place and the billions later. The danger is that we would then end up a world where the Blackberry was still viewed as the height of technology sophistication.
We aren’t in the 90s any more. The internet is a dangerous place, full of malware and scams. I struggle with keeping my own store clean, what’s the chances that others would do it better. I like to keep my store clean because it attracts in customers. What’s to stop bad guys from putting in their own mini-concessions once we open those doors?