> well yes. That's part of the rub. You'll pay $100/year even if you never launch an app so that makes sense. That's the cost of using Apple's SDK.
You don’t need to pay Apple $100/year if all you want is Xcode and the documentation, but if you want to actually launch an app, that’s when you pay Apple.
> But you may now pay $.50 per install even for a free app if you don't/can't host outside of the App store, unless you declare your company/business a non-profit or educational instituion. This was previously $0. So the price hike can become absurd, to say the least.
Yeah, due to *checks notes* changes in the regulatory environment making their previous model untenable in the EU. It is now not worth the cost or business risks to Apple to let all free apps free-ride, just most of them.
> Well tough luck. you made more money off your "baby" than many country's GDP.
Two things: not my baby, and it is absurd to compare annual corporate revenue to GDP. GDP is a measure of economic activity within a nation, not a revenue figure, and revenue measures money earned before costs are accounted for.
> Governments' interest is in making sure companies do not in fact hoard all the money in the world
This statement is meaningless. A government that sees its role in society to cap profits is one that will assuredly wreck that society.
> and when your product becomes a centerpiece of society something's got to give.
Except that it’s not. Apple’s customers are customers who voluntarily spent money to purchase iPhones when other choices were available to them, and an iPhone is a luxury good, not a necessity. It is lucrative to invest in developing software for iPhones, but there are other businesses to go into.
