What I've always found strange about this saga is that Apple's argument has been "we need to be reimbursed for our investments in R&D and maintenance of the App Store". I don't disagree, that seems fair. But they already DO charge explicitly for this... it's the developer program fee. Is this not the exact mechanism they should be using? As far as I can tell the court case didn't broach this.

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robhlt 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I do disagree. They've funded macOS R&D for decades without charging developers anything. Why should iOS be any different?

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y1n0 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

They charged for the operating system. The first MacOS X was $130.

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Despegar 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's not against the law to create a better and more profitable business.

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barnabee an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It should be against the law to create they kind of business they have, though

	▲	y1n0 18 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Why? Android has 72% of the market in 2025. As an individual company Apple has 20% of the market. Samsung has 19%. Just don't buy an iphone and move on with your life.
	▲	Invictus0 18 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		go ahead and make the law then. until then it isn't

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EMIRELADERO 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Better business for a specific company doesn't mean better markets for consumers and other participants, and we make laws to ensure the latter even if it's at the expense of the former.

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hadlock 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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Despegar 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Would you rather pay an exorbitant developer program fee upfront before you know your apps will make any money?

The nominal developer program fee is not designed to be Apple's profit generator. It's to keep spammers out.

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xp84 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> It's to keep spammers out.

Doesn't seem to be working. Have you seen the App Store? You can buy 'antivirus' apps with $79.99 weekly subscriptions. On a sandboxed platform where you can't "scan" anything but yourself.

Also -- it's not that hard to make $143 in scam sales, which will pay for that $99 account.

I actually would rather the developer program fee was $2,000 if it meant it actually was harder for scammers to get in. Of course, it should be free to make apps for my own phone, and to distribute it to those in my family group.

	▲	y1n0 16 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yeah the app store really has turned into a wasteland of shit. I don't think a $2000 fee would change that. People scamming with the $79 weekly subscription for junk make a lot more than that without blinking an eye.
	▲	insane_dreamer 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		there would be 100x that many spam apps if it wasn't gated by a fee, esp nowadays

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dbbk 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My point is rather, why couldn't they just simplify and make the developer program fee tiered. So indie devs pay $99, and huge businesses pay more.

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Y-bar 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The developer program fee.

And the cost of the device sold to end users. And possibly other service fees such as iCloud subscriptions. These are avenues for Apple to earn money to invest in R&D.

	▲	xp84 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		And they act like there's no motivation for R&D unless they're making this rent. I'd say if the R&D makes their devices better then they'll sell more of them and gain marketshare. They don't need the rents to justify that.

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dawnerd an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And you could, should, argue they make it up by charging such a high commission.

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2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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bubblegumcrisis 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Imagine if Apple and Google and etc, didn't vendor lock-in.

Imagine we could run what we wanted. Imagine that we could use whatever payment system we wanted.

Imagine if apple wanted you to use Apple app X, it would need to compete and make it amazing, not just lock you in. Same with payment systems.

Imagine if you could replace the battery of your old phone, and use it for as long as you wished. Without Apple forcing upgrades through their usual tactics.

Apple tells me that it won't even accept applications that target pre-13 soon. And then pre-15 next year.

I hate them.

The fact that this is our current state of tech, tells me that all of the politicians are bought, and that the tech sector has rotten.