I think it's not that complicated, it's the Fight Club argument. Apple's carve-outs for certain companies are likely calibrated such that those companies have s

I think it's not that complicated, it's the Fight Club argument. Apple's carve-outs for certain companies are likely calibrated such that those companies have some revenue X that they would lose if they paid the tax, some legal cost Y to mount a challenge, and there's some likelihood of wining on the merits P. If Apple dropped the exception, the expected value of winning a lawsuit is P * X, so as long as P * X << Y, it's unlikely they'll be sued. For companies like Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify, and others, the amount they would lose in revenue to Apple's tax is likely much more than the cost of mounting a formidable legal challenge to Apple's practices. Apple would like to protect those practices, so its in their best interest to carve out exceptions - no matter how absurd - to companies that are large enough and could make a claim of anticompetitive practices. Apple's tax applies to me, but not for thee (richest companies in the world).