[jimscard]

Everyone who publishes software that runs on iOS devices is an Apple customer, though. This isn’t the same thing as a browser — apps running on iOS devices consume APIs on the device, utilize Apple services, etc. Also, when it comes to web apps, in most cases, the developers are also customers of the browser vendors -- from using browser developer tools and SDKs, for example, https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/ , https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ , and https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/?form=M... to name three. Safari’s dev tools etc. you get with your Apple Dev subscription.

And those browser vendors, like Apple, also provide developer training, developer support services, early access to upcoming product versions, opportunities to provide input into future product designs and features, etc.

In other words, this is not a problem, much less the “core problem”. This is normal industry practice. In fact, on some platforms, there are royalty fees due for the SDK runtime components that are required to run the software a third party developer provides. Just look at mainframes — you might buy XYZ Accounting system from them, and have to pay an additional annual license payment for the cobol runtime it requires.

That fact, by the way, is what the half a Euro per ‘download’ technology fee is about. Part of the DMA requires separation of the “app store fee” from the fee for using iOS services.

It’s also important to note, when people talk about the 30% app store fee as being high — the app store is essentially the same thing as a retail store. Back in the days when you bought software in a physical store, rather than downloading it, the margin at the retail level ranged between 30% and 50%. E.g., we would pay the distributor $25 and sell it for $49.99. The distributor in turn would buy the software in bulk from the manufacturer, for somewhere around $20-$22.

Software developers get a lot bigger share of what the consumer pays in the current model. Some, however, are greedier than others, and leverage governments to their advantage. Epic Games doesn’t want any competition - they want to be the sole retailer of Fortnite on all platforms so that they can raise the price to whatever they want.

[int_19h]

What you are saying is that software industry is a mess, and Apple just happens to be the poster child of many things that are wrong with it.

I agree. Let's deal with all the other extortion schemes while we're at it and make the free market actually free.