Ah yes, putting words inbetween quotes to, uh, quote someone is a very novel usage of quotes. As an aside, being indie isn't a guarantee for honestly: I have seen come incredibly scummy behavior from indies.

> zero cost (or even profitable)

Having to handle _more_ developers isn't zero cost, but let's assume they actually sell games and indeed, make profit. That would be great! I would love a mobile ecosystem where there is a variety of things, where my phone is an actual viable platform for more than just browsing online and shitposting on HN.

>financially

You fundamentally misunderstand just how much money gachas generate every year. You could release a dozen Hollow Knights, a dozen Balatros, a dozen Stardew Valleys every year, and you'd still make less money than taking 30% off of a _single_ gacha. Genshin Impact grossed $10 billion last year. WuWa, ZZZ, HSR all gross close to half a billion each, each year. Pokemon TCG is on track for 1.5bil. And that's just gachas: games like Call of Duty Mobile and other just print out money.

There are no universes, neither in Apple or Google's imagination (which is very locked in on how much money they're making right now, as opposed to how much they could) or in anyone reasonable's thoughts where indie games take off so much they overtake any amount of profit they're currently making. There's no catching up to the amount of content a team like Genshin's puts out every three months.

> reputationally

If you think Apple gives a single shit about reputation when they're the only dealer in town, I have news for you. If you think Google gives a single shit about reputation when 90% of traffic goes through their store anyways, I have news for you.

Indeed—try to make a platform where a solo developer can create an app that is then distributed to almost the entire planet, where anyone can find, buy and install it (with a nearly 100% guarantee that it will work) with a click, and get paid for it without having to open branches in every jurisdiction and deliver paperwork for N different, constantly changing tax regimes.

> Designing entire hardware

Designing the hardware does not entitle you to extracting more money from anything. If you don't want to lose money on your hardware, don't sell it at a loss. (Which Apple isn't doing, nor are any of the Android device manufacturers.) I haven't seen Dyson try to extract 30% off of every hairdressing salon that uses their dryers.

> software, and backend platforms

Are made to attract users on the platform. With the intention of making money from it after. Cool. Quick question, do you pay for Chrome, or Firefox ? They invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into it, how dare you not pay them 30% of every purchase you make online ?

> investing billions of dollars into them every year is not nothing

The billions have been invested initially. The ongoing costs of running the App Store / Play Store are not even close to a billion, especially not for Google that already owns all the network infrastructure necessary to run it.

>If what these companies built took no work, try making your own platform to release games on and see how little work it truly needs.

Sure, that's very simple: take any open publishing store on Android, and ask yourself why noone uses them for games delivery. I'll even add a hint: it's not because they don't offer diff based assets upgrades.

It's a shame they hide these things below the fold.