Proton also offers subscriptions through the Play Store. If the issue is the 30% cut hurting non-ad-funded businesses, shouldn’t this be against all these companies charging 30%, not just Apple? Or not have subscriptions in the Play Store, if Google doesn’t have the same requirements against linking out to other payment options?

The outrage against Apple in this regard has never felt consistently applied based.

So the issue has never been about the 30%, it’s about the closed platform? What if the App Store was free, would people still have an issue, because Apple is controlling the platform and software distribution? If so, why keep going after the 30% fee? It just seems like a convenient headline to use for the attacks.

Valve also makes the Steam Deck. In that case they do own the platform, but if the user wants they can install whatever OS they want… but as designed, and used by most consumers, it’s Valve hardware, running SteamOS from Valve, where people can run games they buy from Steam, Vavle’s game marketplace… where Valve takes 30% of the sales.

The only difference between the Steam Deck and an iPad is that the user can wipe SteamOS off it and use it as a generic system, likely killing most of the reason why they bought the hardware in the first place.

So if the issue is how open the platform is, that seems like an issue for the free market. A lot of people buy Apple stuff because it’s a closed platform that spends a lot of time dialing in the user experience, which is something that often seems lacking on more open platforms, because there are an infinite number of edge cases to cover. If customers want the closed platform, forcing it open end up reducing customer choice, as the closed, tightly knit, ecosystem option no longer exists.

Apple’s business model has also historically been about selling hardware to run their software. “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.” Forcing them into a Microsoft-style business model is a fundamental change to their core business. There should be room in the market for different ideas. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all have very different business models which serve different types of customers. This is a good thing. I wish there was room for more business models to let the little guy move up, but forcing Apple to be Microsoft, Google, or whomever else doesn’t seem like a win, and it has little to do with the 30% App Store fee.

> To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs.

Not only that, because there are other ways to install an app than Steam, the 30% paid to Steam is paying for promotion within their system. Which is valuable because not all apps are available there, so paying for it makes you more likely to be noticed over someone who distributes for the same platform using an external means.

If an app store is the only way to install apps on a platform then everybody is paying the fee and therefore nobody is getting promoted over anybody else in exchange for it.