The App Store Was Always Authoritarian

Summary

High-modernism as handmaiden to autocracy is depressingly predictable. October 11, 2025 Eric Prouzet And now we see it clear, like a Cupertino sunrise bathing Mt. Bielawski in amber: Apple will censor its App Store at the behest of the Trump administration without putting up a fight. It will twist words into their antipodes to serve the powerful at the expense of the weak. To better serve autocrats, it will talk out both sides of its mouth in ways it had previously reserved for dissembling arguments against threats to profits, like right-to-repair and browser choice. They are, of course, linked. Contents Apple bent the knee for months, leaving many commentators to ask why. But the reasons are not mysterious: Apple wants things that only the government can provide, things that will defend and extend its power to extract rents, rather than innovate. Namely, selective exemption from tariffs and an end to the spectre of pro-competition regulation that might bring real browser choice in the US, the EU, and around the world. Over the past few weeks, Tim Apple got a lot what he paid for, with the full weight of the US foreign and industrial policy apparatus threatening the EU over DMA enforcement. This has been part of a full-court press from Cupertino. Apple simultaneously threatened the EU while rolling out fresh astroturf for pliant regulators to recline on. This is loud, coordinated, and calculated. But calculated to achieve what? Why is the DMA such a threat to Apple? Interoperability. The DMA holds the power to unlock true, safe, interoperability via the web. It's core terms require that Apple facilitate real browser engine choice, and Apple is all but refusing, playing games to prevent powerful and safe iOS browsers and the powerful web applications they facilitate. Web applications that can challenge the App Store. Unlike tariffs, which present a threat to short-term profits through higher costs and suppression of upgrades in the near term, interoperability is a la...