Yeah, all Apple users know that "this software needs to be updated" means "the software itself is fine, the developer just needs to pay us money". It's obvious, not misleading or an attempt to create FUD at all.
Why doesn't Apple say what you said? "The software itself might or might not be fine, the developer just needs to pay us money"? Because then their extortion racket would be laid bare to consumers.
Open source and not-for-profit software has been put at a disadvantage here, which I think is very bad for several reasons.
I think you know that downloading an unsigned binary from the internet and executing it on your personal machine is utter stupidity from a security point of view.
However, there is a space of potential solutions to this problem, many of which don't involve giving Apple money.
Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
> Somehow Apple chose a solution which would involve developers giving Apple what is for many people and open source projects a significant sum of money.
Perhaps if the open source community had provided a solution that actually served the needs of end users in this regard, Apple could have adopted it.
> Then, Apple decided to not directly tell Apple users that the thing standing between them and the software they downloaded is that Apple believes the developer needs to give Apple money.
You’ve admitted that they are solving a real problem, therefore this is not an honest representation of what is going on.