“Deterioration means something is there, it's being used, but it's just not as good. Prevented means you close it.”
Epic expert Bernheim maintains that Google expert Gentzkow “ignores four critical aspects of Google's conduct,” including:
1. Google harms competition without completely preventing it
2. Google's conduct targets competition as it emerges
3. Google is dominant
4. Google shares its Play profits with its competitors
“When push comes to shove, it's about impeding competition” rather than harming competition, Bernheim says.
The upshot of this: Bernheim believes Epic doesn't need to prove that Google really blocked the competition entirely. In his (Epic's) opinion, Epic just needs to demonstrate that there are no good alternatives to Google Play and Google Play Billing. It is not necessary to prove that there was no alternative.
For example, Bernheim says, Gentzkow presented a graphic titled “Has Fortnite Been Blocked?” showing that revenue plummeted on Google Play after the app was kicked out of the store, but not for Android phones that got Fortnite in a different way.
But “if Google Play were a good substitute for Google Play, you would see that when one falls, the other rises proportionally.” That didn't happen: demand remained stable outside of Play, according to the bar chart we just saw. “There's no indication that any of the people here are replacing Google Play.”
