Apple ruling opens a can of worms for digital storefronts

Rob Fahey, GameIndustry, writing about this week’s Supreme Court ruling against Apple:

When I walk into a convenience store to buy a cold drink, I’m a customer of the convenience store, not of the Coca-Cola Company, so why should different logic apply when I open the App Store on my phone? Yet Apple’s argument wasn’t entirely without merit either (that’s why it made it all the way to the Supreme Court, I guess). Apple isn’t buying the software from the developer and reselling it to you (as a convenience store does with your Coke Zero), it’s providing a storefront to the developer, who has responsibility for how the software is presented, what they put into it, how it’s priced, and so on.

And:

The precedent is now set; if Apple’s digital distribution consumers are considered to be direct customers of the company, and thus to have standing to challenge its business practices in court, this also holds true for every digital software or media store out there.

That’s a pretty big deal.

This writeup is one of the clearest explainers I’ve seen of the issues at work here and the potential for tipping over a major legal apple cart.