At The Information’s The Future of Influence event on Tuesday, Substack co-founder and CEO Chris Best praised recent changes to Apple’s App Store policies, calling them “fantastic”, and a major win for independent media.
“A big win for independent media”
Best’s comments come in the wake of Epic Games’ historic win against Apple, which forced the company to loosen some of its long-standing restrictions. Under the new mandate, Apple must allow developers to freely direct users to alternative payment methods outside the App Store, no funny business.
“It just means that you’ve always been able to discover things in the Substack app, and you have options for how you charge for it now, which we think is a big win for independent media,” Best said during the event.
That April decision, vociferously handed down by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, found Apple in violation of a prior injunction stemming from its years-long battle with Epic. The heavily worded updated ruling prohibits Apple from collecting commissions on out-of-app purchases, and from blocking developers from telling users about other ways to pay. Which was pretty much the initial ruling as well.
Rushing to make the new normal stick
Besides Epic, the ruling has been a windfall for other major players like Spotify and Patreon, who have wasted no time adopting their own payment systems, and making sure everyone knows about it.
For them, it’s not just about lower fees. It’s about framing the shift as a broader win for creators and customers, hoping the decision will stick definitively. Much of that is clearly PR. But then again, PR is a big part of what got Fortnite back into the U.S. App Store.
While Apple has already appealed the decision, Best’s remarks underscore how quickly major platforms are trying to normalize the changes and move the Overton window in their favor. What remains to be seen is whether that momentum holds, or if Apple’s lawyers will manage to flip the story yet again.
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