Upward Pricing Pressure from Digital Platforms’ Imposition of Take Rates on App Developers

The vertical relationship between digital platforms and the app developers that ply their wares on such marketplaces (e.g. App Store, Play Store, Oculus Store) imposes a largely ignored upward pricing pressure on prices. Digital platforms aim to create walled gardens, leveraging lock-in to cabin consumer substitution within the platform’s boundaries. Digital marketplace owners are largely agnostic to intra-platform substitution, because they collect a platform fee, or “take rate” regardles