JMaille

If you're concerned about small apps, don't be because there won't be any.  One of things App Store income finances is low cost access to developer tools and development of interfaces.  Without that revenue Apple will have to change it's business models.  Which means developer tools and interface access will be financed like on other platforms.  Developer tools will become too expensive for small developers and licenses for interfaces will do away with inexpensive/free apps.  Overall the cost of apps will go up (significantly) not down.  You can also expect free updates to OS updates to end.  This won't be Apple taking revenge, it will be a matter of business. The money to run the operation has to come from somewhere.  All those things Apple provides for "Free" aren't really free and they never have been.

Many years ago, when one of my nieces was seven or eight, she kept insisting that something wasn’t fair. After several minutes of asking I was finally able to get her to articulate what her definition of fair was.  She said fair is I get what I want.  As far as I can tell whenever any businessperson starts talking about fair, they are using the exact same definition – fair is they get what they want.

The goal in all of this is not to make things better for end users of Apple products, nor make things better for developers of software for Apple products.  The goal here is to make more money for the larger developers like Epic (and others) who are supporting and pushing this agenda.  Regardless of how these things go Apple will continue to make money.  The question is how expensive will software for Apple products get and how many small and independent software developers will get crushed and destroyed.  

When are people going to realize this isn’t about reducing the cost to consumers, this is about getting as much money out of consumers as they possibly can.  Epic and the other companies that are protesting the “Apple Tax” aren’t trying to eliminate or even reduce the cost of being in the App Store for themselves.  What they are trying to do is force Apple, either through their own decision, through the courts, or through legislation, to change the way they charge developers for being in the App Store.  They want to do away with the competition from free apps.  They want Apple to change to an approach where any developer that wants to put an app in the App Store has to pay for it, which in turn will eliminate almost all free apps and almost all developers they may have to compete with.  Or better yet, they want to force Apple to allow, or be force to allow, alternate App Stores on every single IOS device so they can stop having to live with the privacy restrictions Apple forces on them.  Then they can get to what they really want, harvesting user data so they can make the user what they think all users should be – the product rather than the customer.