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The app that’s bigger than the iPhone

Good morning! This Tuesday, an SF court deals a blow to the ride-hailers, the risks of Apple losing WeChat, and a new idea about search engines.
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Uber and the State of California have at least one thing in common: They want more regulation on Uber drivers. That's what Dara Khosrowshahi argued in a New York Times op-ed yesterday, anyway. "America needs to change the status quo to protect all workers, not just one type of work," he wrote. But when you get into the how's and the why's of it all, the agreement starts to collapse.
As Protocol's Biz Carson writes, a San Francisco judge ruled yesterday that Uber and Lyft must immediately classify their drivers as employees and not contractors. Well, not immediately: Judge Ethan Schulman gave the companies 10 days, which they'll use to appeal, meaning nothing of significance is likely to change in the near future.
If you want to get super practical about it, all that changed yesterday was that both sides got a little more entrenched. And everybody's continuing to play offense:
Schulman argued in his ruling that now, in the midst of a pandemic that has cratered their core businesses, is the perfect time for Uber and Lyft to rethink their business model. Uber and Lyft's responses seem to be: no thanks, see you back here soon.
As far as I can remember, Apple has held all the cards in disputes with developers for one simple reason: apps need the iPhone more than the iPhone needs apps. Nobody's going to ditch their iPhone because they can't get a recipe app or a new take on email.
WeChat is different. WeChat is an operating system inside your phone, a place where people live their digital — and increasingly offline — lives. For many millions of people, "does it run WeChat" is the single most important question they ask about their phone. If Apple answers no, the iPhone's going to be in trouble.
As many have noted, the Trump-China stakes are higher for Apple than most other tech companies for trade reasons, supply-chain reasons, and political reasons. But the idea that a single app may be more important to users than the rest of Apple's ecosystem is surely concerning to Tim Cook and Co.
Apple's dispute with Facebook, Microsoft and Google over game-streaming services brings up a similar tension. Going forward, there's a subset of phone buyers likely to buy the phone that's best suited to playing games, or at least avoid the phones that won't let them. The game-streaming business may be small for now, but it won't be for long. And Apple's policy of locking out those services, because Apple can't review each game individually, might drive users away.
It doesn't get as much attention as some other antitrust questions, but the debate over search-box defaults is one of the most important issues on the table. Basically: Should regulators force browsers to make it easier to switch search engines? And should search companies be able to pay billions to make themselves the default?
Not only is the search-engine market an important antitrust question, it's also a billion-dollar business. Google pays Apple billions a year to be the default browser in Safari — $1.2 billion in the U.K. alone — and hundreds of millions to Mozilla for the same privilege in Firefox. Companies like DuckDuckGo just don't have the funds to keep up, which is precisely the point.
As we focus on the upcoming 2020 national political conventions, Protocol will lead a two-event series on the tech and policy needed to enable a diverse future workforce and a strong economy. For our first event on August 19, featured policy participants include TechEquity co-founder and former Obama campaign organizer Catherine Bracy, Incite.org managing partner and former Pete for America investment chair Swati Mylavarapu and tech C-suite leaders from Dropbox, Cognizant, IBM, Adobe and more. This event series is hosted in partnership with ITI.
On Protocol: One challenge in the AI-powered future of farming? Not enough qualified people to train the data, said Blue River's Chris Padwick:
Reddit is planning to allow pro-Trump ads on the platform, and Steve Huffman said that's as it should be:
WarnerMedia's Jason Kilar had some pointed words for Jeff Bezos about their streaming spat:
Lots of tech workers are joining the Biden campaign, but campaign spokesman Matt Hill said Biden's not easing up on Big Tech:
On a call about the White House's 5G plan, a reporter asked if Trump and Ajit Pai have coordinated efforts, and this was the answer:
David Marcus is the new head of Facebook Financial, the group within Facebook that will oversee all of its payments and finance products. That includes Novi, Libra, Facebook Pay, WhatsApp's payment projects and more. Stephane Kasriel, the former CEO of Upwork, will be Marcus's deputy.
Manish Gupta is Coinbase's new EVP of engineering. He comes from Lyft, where he was the VP of engineering, and before that was at Google for many years.
Today is Steve Wozniak's 70th birthday. To celebrate, he's throwing a huge virtual party to benefit Jewel's Inspiring Children Foundation, and the guest list includes everyone from Jay Leno to Mark Cuban to Kristi Yamaguchi. And after the party, there's 11 days of events, challenges, and prizes to be won. Leave it to Woz to figure out how to throw the coolest pandemic birthday party ever.
As we focus on the upcoming 2020 national political conventions, Protocol will lead a two-event series on the tech and policy needed to enable a diverse future workforce and a strong economy. For our first event on August 19, featured policy participants include TechEquity co-founder and former Obama campaign organizer Catherine Bracy, Incite.org managing partner and former Pete for America investment chair Swati Mylavarapu and tech C-suite leaders from Dropbox, Cognizant, IBM, Adobe and more. This event series is hosted in partnership with ITI.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day, see you tomorrow.
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