The tech bros are fighting again. Last week, Apple blocked Epic Games from accessing its developer platform in Europe. The move would have prevented the Fortnite maker from building an app store to rival Apple’s just days before the European Union’s new competition measures — the Digital Markets Act — designed to prevent just such a thing, come into effect. Then, in an about-face as the EU began an investigation, Apple reversed course — a move Epic says is a response to “public backlash for retaliation.”

Writing for the New York Times, Tripp Mickle reports that Apple’s attempt to block Epic was justified by the claim that Epic is a rule-breaker that refuses to stay within the lines drawn to keep the App Store secure. As a rationale, it’s thin gruel. Mickle notes further that “Apple also objected to Epic’s criticism of Apple’s plans to comply with Europe’s tech competition law” — which is to say the Cupertino giant was trying to convince people it would comply with attempts to limit anti-competitive behavior. Did anyone believe that?

That reason, no doubt at the heart of the ban, is another level of petty and disconcerting monopolist bullying from Apple. The dispute between Apple and Epic is a stark reminder of Gilded Age misconduct. Private monopolies are undesirable as a rule and contemporary tech monopolists and oligopolists — in their sheer heft and reach — represent something even worse than their twentieth-century forebears. The tech battle is a call to double down on efforts to install democratic control over these companies that shape markets and so much of our lives.