A hot potato: App developers frustrated with Apple's and Google's "unfair" walled-garden policies have a new champion. Meta and several other organizations have formed a coalition to challenge the "duopoly" these two mobile platform giants have built. Initial efforts focus on age verification reform, but the alliance also plans to tackle several other restrictive policies maintained by both companies.
Meta, Spotify, Garmin, Match Group, and others have joined forces to form a lobbying partnership targeting the control Apple and Google exert over their mobile app ecosystems. Bloomberg notes that the Coalition for a Competitive Mobile Experience will focus on platform fairness, with its initial priority being a push to shift age verification responsibilities from apps to app stores.
The group argues that platforms – not individual developers – should handle the process of confirming user age before downloads. Utah passed a law last year requiring app stores to conduct age verification, so it's not without precedent. Meta has already made that case to lawmakers, and the coalition plans to support similar legislation at the state and federal levels. Google unsurprisingly opposes the effort, claiming that Meta is just trying to offload its responsibility under current COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) regulations.
The group's broader mission goes beyond age gates. It wants app store operators to play fair with rival software and hardware, stop favoring first-party products, and give developers more freedom to direct users to alternative payment options. It also plans to support the Department of Justice's antitrust cases against Apple and Google.
Coalition for a Competitive Mobile Experience Director Brandon Kressin, a seasoned antitrust attorney, said the group aims to amplify concerns that smaller app makers struggle to raise alone.
"There's power in numbers, especially when going up against companies as powerful as the duopoly," Kressin told Bloomberg.
The coalition formed on the same day Apple lost a major round in its legal fight with Epic Games. A federal judge ruled that Apple can no longer block developers from steering users to external payment options or charge fees on purchases outside the App Store. That decision undercuts one of Apple's most tightly controlled policies, giving the new coalition extra momentum.
With lawmakers cracking down and courts chipping away at the status quo, the coalition is betting that collective pressure – not individual complaints – has the best shot at breaking the current walled-garden model wide open. The group is well-positioned to become a key player in reshaping the future of app store policies. Whether or not it can challenge the dominant duopoly remains to be seen, but with increasing bipartisan support, the coalition's efforts are already gaining traction.
Image credit: Yuri Samoilov
Meta, Spotify, and others unite to challenge the Apple-Google app store duopoly
