Nilay Patel

That second agent proved quite capable, not only agreeing that the situation was strange, but also looking into issues on Apple’s side. Which led to the somewhat bizarre conclusion of this story: after perhaps 20 minutes on the phone, he seemed to hit on something. I heard him laugh and say something along the lines of “that explains it” and then, with my consent, put me on hold. When he came back, he said—and I’m not exactly quoting, but close enough: “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than this, but all your services should be back up pretty much exactly 12 hours after they went down.”

Payments on the scale the publishers expect would mark a dramatic change for companies like Google, which have built high-margin business in large part because they — unlike media companies from Netflix to Comcast — don’t pay for content.

Unless the publishers lower their expectations, or the tech companies adjust their fundamental sense of what it is to be a platform, this high stakes conflict is likely to escalate.