The iPhone, one of the most innovative and successful products of all time. An idea so brilliantly executed that it propelled its creator, Apple, to global acclaim, and provided the company with the funds to expand into dozens of other markets. However, due to recent events, it might be in consumers’ best interest to stay away from anything that the tech giant produces.

Apple has been at the “core” of some drama in Europe recently after the tech giant was hit with a roughly  $2 billion fine for violating the European Union’s competition laws. The lawsuit centered around how Apple dealt with in-app payments, and specifically how that process interacted with Apple Music competitor, Spotify. The issue was that whenever a user purchased something from an app installed through the Apple app store, Apple would take a 30% cut of all revenues, this meant that whenever an individual purchased a Spotify product or subscription on an Apple device, up to 30% of that purchase went directly to Spotify’s primary competitor, Apple music.

Spotify was understandably not happy with the way that Apple was conducting business, and as a result, filed a formal complaint to the European Trade Commission, who sided with Spotify, stating that “For a decade, Apple abused its dominant position in the market for the distribution of music streaming apps through the App Store. They did so by restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.”

So why is this important? Apple was in violation of EU anti-trust laws, got fined, and is now offering side loading and Spotify can now continue to operate but with higher margins, right? Wrong. Although Apple is enabling side loading, it is looking for every possible way to make side loading a more complex process for consumers, and a more expensive venture for companies like Spotify by introducing new fees on side loaded content, taking up to a 27% cut. Practically this means that nothing will change, the consumer will continue to pay inflated prices, and Apple will continue taking a massive cut of developers’ profits.

However ultimately, what really matters is not that Spotify Premium costs slightly more on Apple devices, it is what this entire situation reveals about Apple as a company, that being that as a company they are blatantly anti-competition, and anti-consumer.

How? Despite knowing that continuing to take large revenue cuts will result in a higher priced good for the consumer, Apple has gone to great lengths to maintain an iron grip on its ability to take these revenue cuts, only easing up to avoid further fines and punishment from governments. If Apple is willing to perform such feats of legal acrobatics to increase profits and market share in the music industry, who is to say that they won’t do something similar in other spaces, like gaming, or streaming? Who is to say they haven’t already started? Another fact that is important to remember is that the ruling in the EU that requires Apple to enable side loading is only relevant in the EU, so Apple continues to take an even larger revenue cut in the United States, making subscription services even more expensive.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Apple does not want to be the best option, they want to be the ONLY option. Competition drives innovation, and when that competition ceases, so will innovation, meaning that the more Apple dominates, the less consumers can expect to see the latest and greatest in their products.