They've been actively fostering the enshitiffication of the App Store. Practises like preventing paid upgrades forces developers to use micro-transactions to survive. They also aggressively change and deprecate APIs without adequate notice or documentation. This means apps require constant maintenance. So one-time purchases are much less viable for developers.

Soon we'll be able to install whichever apps we like in the EU thanks to the DMA. I think there is a hunger for alternative app stores.

One could argue that Apple Arcade is exactly that healthier ecosystem. Games with less bullshit and no in-app purchases.

Not to mention the rise of the dreaded Subscription Model. That has to be the most miserable scam ever inflicted upon software users. I’m sure a lot of developers here will disagree and quote needing a constant stream of revenue, but the same is true of any business including a Mom&Pop corner shop—and yet they survive (or don’t) on the margin they make on the products they sell, not by selling a subscription card you need to possess in order to have the privilege of shopping at their store.