1/ When those who are often outspoken on Twitter are now quiet, Tim continues to champion for fair competition on mobile - perhaps because he understands the difficulty of bootstrapping a company as a newcomer, since he was once one of those himself in a different era https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1288295298645856262

2/ For me, this is more personal, as it took 6 years to grow from $0 to where we are now. Fortunately, having started on web, which is completely open market - we were able to grow our foundation and eventually expand from there.

3/ It took us 6 years to reach where we are now, and 5 years to be truly self-sufficient. The kicker is - we paid Apple more money in 2018 than we MADE last 4 years combined.

With that money, we could have fueled 10x more hires, expanded faster and created more products.

4/ In a day where there is excess and overspending, especially with VC money, it's important to have people advocate for changes like these that help essentially the "little guys," because that's where true innovation comes from.

5/ If we had started on mobile (instead of web), I'm not sure we would even have a business since 30% is incredibly taxing. For an AMAZING outcome of $1M in revenue, that's 300,000 instantly gone to Apple. Then there are expenses and self-employment tax.

6/ America and much of its growth in the technology era was fueled by free market economics (ex: web), not by taxes. As people shifted to mobile from web and desktop, this privatized the growth of tech into Apple/Google's hands.

7/ Apple has made $30B from developers through the 30% cut, while it's made that much in a single quarter from iPhone sales. It's not an argument that Apple shouldn't make money, but heavily stunting the growth of new technology simply stunts their own business long term.

8/ On top of all the various tech and hoops a well-funded VC backed company has to jump through to launch an app (let alone a bootstrapped one), there's now this egregious "tax."

Since I'm more familiar with gaming - I'll give an example

9/ It's hard as hell to even launch an app. Name the number of cross-platform multiplayer games on mobile that is also on PC/Console/Other.

Fortnite....? That's it.

It's even hard for AAAs, let alone indies.

10/ And because of the sheer number of people on mobile, you essentially HAVE to have a mobile app, if not now but in the future. But you're also forced into this 30% tax. For a new startup, this fee becomes such a death trap - as it significantly alters your future.

11/ A huge amount of startups fail because their inability to navigate this thin margin, bc it's HARD. This happens over and over again, VC money gets recycled and attempts are made.

12/ Today, to be able to make a company like Epic Games (which took 20+ years to get to where it is now), with a 30% tax on the top-line - IS impossible. The problem is - this 30% shit is global because of the monopoly Apple has and Google's essentially, as well.

13/ To put it simply, see if you want to play a video game where you're building and 30% of every gain you make is taken away from you, but you're expected to pay for everything else at the same price- that's not a game you'd play is it?

This illustrates the problem today