[Stormbringer]

It isn't a big tax that is suddenly something new.

What it is, is a way to prevent developers trying to rort the system and doing an end run around their fee structure.

When this first came out, the ones screaming the loudest were the guys who had "free" apps ($0 to Apple) who then built into their apps an "okay, you've been using it for 5 minutes, now pay us $3 ($0 to Apple)" 'one-off subscription'.

E.g. you used to be able to get all the benefits of a paid app without paying Apple anything, simply by relabelling the "paid" app as an app with a "one-off subscription".

Apple closed that loop-hole. Hence one particular side of the screaming. You don't actually need to ascribe these actions to some kind of evil Microsoftian conspiracy, it's jsut closing a loophole that some people were using to cheat the system.

The other side of this coin is the arrangements between authors and publishers, where the authors have had a long time 70% of net agreement. If the author gets 70% and Apple gets 30%... this leaves 0% for the middle-man. So they weren't happy.

[dstein]

You're forgetting that there is no other way to sell software or content on an iOS device. You can't circumvent the App Store unless you tell your customers to crack their devices and use Cydia.

I would be completely fine with Apple's App Store restrictions if iOS devices weren't locked down like they are. Even Microsoft never dreamed of the kind of Orwellian nightmare that Apple is spinning around the computing industry.

[Stormbringer]

Did you even read the article? It contradicts your first sentence. Also, your initial premise that you are somehow more aware of my memory system than I am... is... deeply flawed.

If you want to reframe the debate in terms of Apple is evil, therefore everything they do, say or think is evil, by all means go and do that. (And they say the fanboys are the ones suffering from a reality distortion field...) But this isn't really the place. I'm sure you can find large numbers of people willing to agree with you though.

On the off chance that you can't find any thread on Hacker News or elsewhere on the Internet that fit that theme... perhaps you should start your own? You could write a blog post about how it is all part of some conspiracy. Or if you're really lazy you could write a top ten list... just pick any ten random Apple news items, there's bound to be someone slagging them off for each of them.

Then you just post that link to Hacker News, you'll get guaranteed upvotes, it will make the front page... and Ta Da!!! "Apple = evil conspiracy" comments will be on topic in that thread! Hooray!