It is still disgusting. There is no need for that fee to be there, because remember, it sits on top of the purchase of at least $1,500 (a decent Mac).

I tried to see if I could make improvements to Immich. No can do, as half of their entitlements require a team account (and even then begging Apple to get the entitlements).

Now, they do offer a private account, so I spent time removing those entitlements. Guess what? Starting over 3 times and you're hit with a 'you can only sign 10 apps / week'.

Why do apps built for my iPhone, which I explicitly need to put in Developer mode, need to be signed by daddy Cook?

Apple can charge you that because they have a platform which is a monopoly.

Granted, they did the work that built and maintain the platform, but at some point it's actually the countless developers who contribute value, not Apple.

True. I completely forgot about that part. I absolutely love my windows PC, but I had to buy a mac so I can support cross platform