MIAMI, FLORIDA – JULY 30: The entrance to a Publix Super Market on July 30, 2024 in Miami, Florida. The supermarket chain was founded in 1930 and now has 1,375 store locations across the Southeast United States. The business had retail sales in 2022 that reached $54.5 billion and employs over 255,000 people. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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As supermarkets go, Publix has few rivals. To visit a Publix is to be impressed not just with product selection and the look of each store, but also the incredibly committed employees in the Lakeland, FL-based corporation’s employ.
In contemplating Publix, it’s perhaps easy to forget that implied in the food items on its shelves, along with the perishable items in its freezers and refrigerators, is trust. Whether meat, bread, fish, or even fish sticks, Publix customers know that if it’s sold at a Publix store, it’s been substantially vetted.
The great lengths that Publix goes to for its customers is worth thinking about as lawmakers contemplate the App Store Freedom Act. Introduced by Rep. Kathryn “Kat” Cammack, the legislation aims to make it easy for unvetted third-party apps and payment systems in the U.S. to make their way onto Apple and Google devices.
Up front, it’s simple to see why apps and payments systems would want to be featured on Apple and Google products. So popular are both that it wastes words to observe the worth of being operative on Google and Apple devices. Which is the point, or should be.
Apple and Google didn’t attain their stature with U.S. and global customers blithely, or via luck. They did so because much like Publix and other great brands, they’ve gone to great lengths to curate the apps and payments systems that rate inclusion on their products. As is the case with Publix, trust in what’s available to Apple and Google users is implied in what users of both can access. Put another way, if Apple and Google deem an app or payments system worthy, then it must be. And there’s more.
Implied in the invisible “velvet rope” that all the great businesses employ is protection of their customers. Customers need to know that what they interact with can be trusted to not bring harm to them, or in the case of payments systems, scam them. The latter in mind, is it any wonder beyond obvious liability challenges that Google and Apple would require full control over which apps and payments systems can and cannot be featured on their products? Hopefully the question answers itself.
Which then requires a pivot back to Cammack. She represents Florida’s 3rd district in Congress, and presently resides in Gainesville. Notable about Gainesville is that there are fourteen Publix stores there, with the first opening in 1958. Publix has a history with Gainesville and its residents that is plainly a grand one as evidenced by the number of stores that serve a population of 148,000. Curiosity brings people into a business, but trust is what brings customers back time after time.
The success of Publix not just in Cammack’s Florida, but throughout the southeast, begs for the representative’s careful thought as she foists legislation on Apple and Google that she might look askance at if imposed on Publix. Just as apps and payments systems want access to the customers of Apple and Google, so do producers of consumer goods very much want to be on the shelves, and in the refrigerators and freezers of Publix.
Except that what makes Publix great is that the difference in numbers between the consumer brands that want association with Publix, and those who can claim it, is vast. Such is the genius of Publix, along with that of Apple and Google.
Which speaks to the major flaw in Cammack’s legislation. Greatness can’t be legislated as a walk in any Publix store would reveal to Cammack.