What happens if Apple loses its Supreme Court App Store antitrust appeal?

The Supreme Court will decide whether iPhone users can sue Apple for locking down the iOS ecosystem, something the suit’s plaintiffs say is creating an anti-competitive monopoly. Apple v. Pepper could theoretically affect how tech companies can build walled gardens around their products. The Supreme Court isn’t going to make a call on that specific issue, but its decision could affect people’s relationship with all kinds of digital platforms. Here’s what’s at stake when the Supreme Court case starts, which should happen sometime in the next year. 

What happens if Apple loses? Nothing — yet. If a court rules that Apple has an unlawful monopoly, it could require Apple to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars or even change its App Store model. If the Supreme Court upholds the Ninth Circuit’s decision, though, it will just send the case back to a lower court, where the fight will keep going. But the decision will also affect how much power consumers have over digital platforms. In 1998, a major appeals court ruling shot down concertgoers who sued Ticketmaster for driving up ticket prices, saying that Ticketmaster was actually selling distribution services to concert venues. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion explicitly says that decision was wrong. So a favorable Supreme Court ruling wouldn’t just keep this particular lawsuit alive. It could make other powerful online stores more accountable toward their users.