| Barrier to entry. If your project is more than a hobby, you can jump through a couple hoops to reach the iOS userbase. Sure, I can do that. But I won't. If you buy an iPhone, I'm afraid you will just get an inferior version of my service, or you won't find it at all, because you bought into a platform that is developer-hostile. In the meantime, all of my other customers, who are happy to visit my web sites directly or find them via more developer-friendly channels, will be benefitting from improved features or extra content or lower prices that we could offer because we didn't waste time jumping through Apple's hoops. This is very much about barriers to entry, because every barrier cleared represents an opportunity cost. Nothing about jumping through Apple's hoops makes my service better for my customers, and all of it makes life harder for us. Your whole argument about being developer-first also being user-hostile seems like one big false dichotomy to me. It is precisely because I have limited time and resources and I want to spend them making things better for my users and thus ultimately being more successful as a business that I won't play these games. |