An Odd contradiction with the UK's tech start-up culture...

According to Dominic Fean, in the good old Daily Mail (and picked up by The Week where I read this, Andy Burnham's next real fight may just be against the power held by America’s biggest technology companies.

He asks us to consider this..... When you buy an app or pay for a subscription in Apple’s App Store or on Google Play, those companies can take up to 30% of your money. Imagine if Visa or Mastercard took 30 cents of every dollar you spent with your bank card, this would NOT be acceptable, but with these digital platforms, these fees are tucked away and, for some reason, have become accepted.

And Apple and Google— don’t just rake in profit from their own products. They charge developers big fees just to sell their own apps, or even for digital extras within the apps. For years, if you wanted your app on an iPhone, you used Apple’s payment system and swallowed their commission. Google did the same thing.

For small studios, these fees can kill their business. Some companies never get off the ground because the margin is just too thin.

Regulators are finally starting to fight back. In some countries, Apple and Google now have to let developers direct customers to outside payment options, where the fee isn’t so brutal. That’s taken years of lawsuits and government action to happen—even these little wins didn’t come easy.

Why This Fight Matters

The problem here is that Apple and Google are locking out competition...

It’s an old worry. Economists always warn us that, when one or two companies run a whole market, competition dries up. Nobody tries new things. Prices stay higher than they should be.

And in digital markets, it’s even tougher to break in. The reason is network effects—more users attract more developers, and more apps attract more users. Suddenly, the whole thing just feeds into itself. If you’re a competitor, good luck. You’re up against an empire.

The UK’s Big Chance

This is where Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) comes in. Fean’s argument is that the CMA can actually make a difference. Change the rules, and the UK could become a much better place to build apps or launch a new tech business.

And maybe this is necessary to end an odd contradiction... Politicians keep talking up the UK’s ambition to lead the world in tech. There’s always a new strategy — AI, fintech, innovation funding. Yet, if you’re a founder, having to hand over a huge chunk of your earnings just to reach customers makes growing a local business much harder.

If the UK wants to be a true tech powerhouse, it can’t just spend on the latest shiny thing. Level out the playing field for developers. That’s where the real progress starts.