They are hardly mythical, for one I could think of Steam and Epic Games.

Competition is what stops the exploitation.

Epic Games has always offered lower fees and their CEO has been advocating for small developers for years.

There is no reason why Google and Apple get to bundle their stores, and these other big names have to collect the scraps from users who care to look up alternative stores and go through scare screens.

▲

NetMageSCW 3 hours ago | parent [-]

There are very good reasons, starting with the fact that there was no good mobile app experience before Apple created one. And they created one that was half the cost of the terrible stores that existed before.

And they created the hardware and software to make all this possible.

▲

computably 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

None of that explains why the owner of an Apple device can't install alternative app stores, nor the bundling of their own app store.

▲

GeekyBear 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Apple never claimed to be an open ecosystem that allowed users to install anything they liked without interference.

▲

rixed an hour ago | parent [-]

Actually, from 2007 (first iPhone) to 2008 (the App Store), they kind of did.

	▲	GeekyBear 16 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Apple made it perfectly clear that iDevices would be a walled garden when they released the SDK for third party applications.
	▲	happyopossum 44 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That’s retconning at its best - there was no support for 3rd party apps then, just websites.

▲

dare944 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No amount of "they did it first", "they did it better" entitles them to monopolistic behavior.