The Ledger

Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.

clear all ✕

why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable

Assertion Contradicted
Evans: No competing AI app has more than 5% of ChatGPT's usage
“Go look at App Store ranking, or Google Trends, or usage data of any kind that you can get, and you see that basically it's ChatGPT, and then none of the others are more than five percent of that.”
Benedict Evans Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 2:40 A double episode: AI differentiation, and Apple does F1
Prediction Held up
Evans: The 30% App Store commission rule is toast
“Look, the 30% rule is toast, but we don't really know quite how and what and where”
Benedict Evans Sep 20, 2021 ▶ 21:24 Apple's metronome
Insight
Evans: Generalized EU tech rules become complex when platforms implement them
“The EU is trying to say, look, let's just have like a kind of general, generalized rules that will sort of try and capture lots of different questions at once. The problem is, of course, as soon as you get into how does Apple actually implement this in the app…”
Benedict Evans Mar 13, 2024 ▶ 8:18 Tiktok, Apple and Temu
Opinion
App Store privacy labels are a self-inflicted wound for Apple
“And so it's weird because the weird thing about this is this is actually hurting Apple. Clearly it's the problem with Meta and Twitter and anybody else with an app on the store, but it's also hurting Apple because Apple is telling people that there's no privac…”
Benedict Evans Jul 21, 2023 ▶ 31:42 Threads
Opinion
Evans: Sideloading apps with file access would be a catastrophe for users
“I would die on the hill that you should not be able to install a random app From the web that can access your file system. That would be a catastrophe for a billion users.”
Benedict Evans Sep 20, 2021 ▶ 10:45 Apple's metronome
Assertion Supported
Evans: 0.5% of iPhone users generate half of App Store spending
“Second observation is we know from the disclosures in the Epic trial that about 80% so Apple did fifteen billion dollars. Apple gives a number. They did fifteen billion dollars in App Store commission. 65, sixty-five billion dollars, I think, of total money sp…”
Benedict Evans Sep 20, 2021 ▶ 17:08 Apple's metronome
Assertion Supported
Evans: 0.5% of App Store Accounts Generated 54% of Billings in 2016
“Not .5% of accounts spent over 450 dollars in the quarter. Not sure if this is quarter or month, I have to go and check. Same point, really. And those users were 54% of total App Store billings.”
Benedict Evans Aug 26, 2021 ▶ 30:36 Games and Roblox
Opinion
Evans: Eliminating mobile app sandboxing and curated stores would be a catastrophe
“I actually have absolutely no interest in debating the idea that a sandbox and an app store in principle is a good idea and that getting rid of it would be a catastrophe.”
Benedict Evans Mar 7, 2021 ▶ 10:46 App stores: arguing like it's 2009
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Evans: Apple's market share legally constrains its freedom to impose platform rules
“On any of these sorts of legal tests, Apple has sufficiently large market share that they are no longer completely free to do whatever they want. And you can think that that shouldn't be the case, but that is the case. You know, that's, that is where the law i…”
Benedict Evans Mar 7, 2021 ▶ 14:30 App stores: arguing like it's 2009
Assertion Supported
Evans: Perplexity gets buzz but struggles to crack App Store top 100
“Perplexity gets all this buzz and struggles to break into the top hundred on the App Store.”
Benedict Evans Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 2:53 A double episode: AI differentiation, and Apple does F1
Assertion Supported
Evans: Apple's 15% fee tier covers 90% of developers, 10% of revenue
“A couple of months ago, they said, okay, if you're doing less than I think a million dollars a year, then it's only 15%. And of course that's a tiny portion of their revenue, but that's like 90% of the developers and 10% of their revenue.”
Benedict Evans Mar 7, 2021 ▶ 2:07 App stores: arguing like it's 2009
Assertion Supported
Evans: iOS attack surface dwarfs Mac with one billion active devices
“There's, say, a hundred million Macs out there, and most people don't really install software on their Macs. They've got the software it came with, they installed Zoom, and maybe Office, or maybe Photoshop, and that's kind of it... Nobody is installing five ap…”
Benedict Evans Jun 14, 2021 ▶ 23:15 Paying attention to Apple again
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