[brookst]

It's not about the technologies of distribution.

Apple's moat is the 1B users who go to the app store to search for apps. No amount of WASM is going to get developers in front of a billion qualified purchasers.

I shipped an app in the App store. Over a few years, I made mid-six-figures from it. I never once begrudged Apple their 30% because without the app store I would have made next to nothing, certainly not enough to justify building and supporting the app. What was I going to do, set up a web page and hope my SEO skills were good enough to get a small trickle of users?

I often wonder if any of the people outraged at Apple's 30% (now often 15%) cut have actually tried to market an application. That is a tiny, tiny price to pay for the upside.