[gwd]

> It does? macOS seems to do well enough on the privacy front.

And my laptop is a lot more expensive than my phone.

Look, you're presumably complaining because you either own, or want to own, an iPhone, in spite of there being dozens of other phones with similar features, and hundreds more with different features. The feature / price point combination of those phones are in part a result of the App Store policies. Changing that cut will change the feature / price point: they'd have to charge more, or give you less, or find alternate sources of revenue (i.e., start spying on you).

Now, maybe their business model would work fine without having to resort to ads or raise the prices too much. But maybe it won't. The only way to find out would be to risk destroying it. Which is completely unnecessary, given that there are so many alternatives.

If you don't like their policies, don't buy their phone. If Spotify doesn't like paying a 30% cut, they don't have to make an iPhone app. There are lots of other options out there.

[Wowfunhappy]

> And my laptop is a lot more expensive than my phone.

It's not for many people. An iPhone X starts at $1,000.

> The feature / price point combination of those phones are in part a result of the App Store policies. Changing that cut will change the feature / price point: they'd have to charge more, or give you less, or find alternate sources of revenue (i.e., start spying on you).

Apple is a ridiculously profitable company. They quite literally have more money than they know what to do with, as evidenced by their enormous bank account.

I'm happy Apple has been so successful, but I also think a portion of their inordinate profitability has come from anticompetitive practices, namely how locked down the app store is. They don't have a right to that particular revenue stream.