[guelo]

You're a sharecropper. It doesn't matter how much you pour your heart and soul into someone else's platform it's still their platform. They don't owe you anything, they care about one thing, maximizing their profits. People sometimes appeal to the large corporation pleading that helping the "ecosystem" will make more money for everybody. But this is not necessarily true. There are many situations where screwing over the ecosystem in some way maximizes the corporations' profits while hurting everyone else, and the corporation will choose that route every time.

The only option is to stop being a sharecropper. We are incredibly lucky that their is one open platform out there: the web. It is an amazing accident of history that we ended up with the web as an open platform. And there are corporations working hard to lock it down, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. But so far it's still open. If you don't want to be a sharecropper the web is your only option.

[robotcookies]

Absolutely. What Apple is or isn't doing isn't the real issue. The issue is, do you want to put yourself in a position where they could do things to you and you'd have no recourse?

As a corporation, Apple is obligated to maximize profit for their investors. That means if they could raise their take to 40% or 70%, and make more net money by doing it- they are supposed to do it. Corporations are not charities. If Google could do it, they would do it. If Softie could do it, they would do it too. Stop expecting companies to do things out of the kindness of their hearts. Apple is doing what they are supposed to do. But if more developers moved to the web, they might even start doing things to attract them back.

[mavdi]

Well said. I made the mistake of investing in a closed ecosystem once with Adobe and Flash. They pulled the rug out from under their developers (Flash was dying, they said it wasn't and then it died anyway and they dropped it like a sack of potatoes)and I promised myself not to EVER invest any time on any closed platform. I don't even use PaaS systems as much as possible as we've seen what happens when they go bust.

[walterbell]

I can't find the reference at the moment, but apparently Apple's commodization of iOS developers was intended to prevent any iOS ISV gaining the negotiating power that Adobe once had against Apple.

[kalleboo]

Wouldn't Microsoft be a better example of a developer holding "too much" power over Apple? I'm sure Jobs didn't enjoy having Gates' face leering down on him on stage, promising to keep developing Office for Mac.

[walterbell]

Desktop publishing was critical to Apple's early success, even though Microsoft was important for the broader market of users.

[AnthonyMouse]

> We are incredibly lucky that their is one open platform out there: the web.

The web is great, but it isn't a full platform. You can't have a web-based device driver, or VPN, or secure email, or ssh server. You can't replace your web browser with a web-based web browser. There are things that are just not possible on the web, but that people still need to be able to do. And the people who make those things should not be sharecroppers either.

[Buge]

> a web-based web browser

Reminds me of this: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

[gkanai]

There is a web-based mobile phone: Firefox OS.

[AnthonyMouse]

The large majority of Firefox OS is written in C and C++. The Linux kernel it uses isn't web-based. Firefox itself isn't web-based.

Mozilla are good people, but it's really obvious why they would want to encourage people to make web apps instead of native apps. There is still a ton of software that can't be web-based.