Weekly scoreboard

IssueNo. 001
The dateJuly 29, 2020

The call

DIDN'T FLINCH

The player

Tim Cook

The room

House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust

Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6

The play

What's to stop Apple from raising the cut to 50%?

Johnson

“What's to stop Apple from increasing its commission to 50 percent?”

Cook

“Sir, we have never increased commissions in the store since the first day it operated in 2008.”

Johnson

“There's nothing to stop you from doing so, is it?”

Cook

“No, sir. I disagree strongly with that.”

Cook

“There is a competition for developers just like there's a competition for customers. And so the competition for developers, they can write their apps for Android or Windows or Xbox or PlayStation. So we have fierce competition at the developer side and the customer side, which is essentially — it's so competitive I would describe it as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business.”

One room. One loaded question. One call. This week: Tim Cook on the House Judiciary dais, Issue 001. Johnson came for a confession. Cook did not give him one.

How power actually talks

Fourteen pages for the loaded question — cost, “isn’t that correct?”, “what’s stopping you.” A three-line shutdown you can use this week. No personality course.