The Hidden Toll Booth Inside iPhone Cables
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Apple's MFI (Made for iPhone) program required every Lightning cable manufacturer to embed a proprietary authentication chip in each connector, costing ~$3 per connector plus licensing fees. This effectively gave Apple a tax on the entire iPhone accessory market — chargers, speaker docks, car adapters — before a product was even built. The arrival of USB-C ended this arrangement, but Lightning remains a prime example of how a platform owner can monetize a hardware standard as a recurring revenue stream.
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