How would an Epic iOS app store make consumers not buy an iPhone?

Let’s say Amazon joined in and started selling Kindle and Audible books without using Apple’s 30% digital cut. Apple would have to pull the Amazon app, possibly the Kindle app. Actually, they’d have to do that if Amazon simply said, Apple won’t let this be sold here on reasonable terms, buy from the website. Amazon would lose some, but Apple would also be crippling iOS. Then Spotify joins in, and Tinder, and Duolingo. All of a sudden, Apple’s platform looks pretty lame.

So what you're saying is that Apple wants to set up an example to maintain the status quo?

I’m saying Apple is inadvertently admitting that they won’t have an ecosystem if they remove the apps that create it. Allowing digital goods to be sold at market prices puts Apple’s digital goods in a bad competitive position, but wouldn’t kill iOS or iPhone sales. However, Apple removing the apps will.

"We can't allow Epic to behave like this, otherwise we'll be forced to remove apps from the AppStore and we really don't want to kill iOS with our own draconian policies"

:)