The other big sticking point for me? You can't develop for Apple without an Apple. I can write code for Android on any OS and don't force developers to pay thousands into the ECOsystem to release a _free_ application
Have you seen the few apps that Apple has ported to other platforms like iTunes?
I am surprised to hear the priced decreased - back when I did that sort of development is was $150 to publish free apps
Personally I have seen fit to centralize all my PII with Google, since GMail was new. If my data leaks I know who to blame.
If I want a product I buy it, if it doesn’t let me down or exceeds my expectation I’ll buy again, but it’s nothing personal, I have nothing to gain from trying to make them look better than the deserve.
Google sucks though they are not loyal to the US, but they do act on their loyalties.
Here we are again at the "Apple-Experience" where the customer base is ready to pay ridiculous prices because it's part of it to show that you can afford it. How this says something about quality is beyond me but maybe you need to participate first before you can come to this conclusion...it's not like you are taking a credit from Apple where you need to show you can pay it back or rent a car where you need to show your drivers license or something.
I don't even understand what you mean by "quality" in the first place. So the quality of the product is not there yet and you have to pay so they can set it up/keep it up? What part exactly does require such a hefty sum?
So what if it’s only 15 out of 100 people who can’t or won’t pay to play that would be the ones to create a poor experience? They decided it’s worth keeping out the rest of them.
This is the same reason why they purposefully break apps on iOS updates (it’s not just about being too lean to care about backwards compat) but it forces people to update their apps and many times this comes with a QoL refresh from the developer.
They also require a DUNS number in order to publish an app as a company rather than an individual, and $100/year to publish at all.
Similar line of thinking, hoops that force people to show that they are capable of meeting a standard, even if it is just the 80/20 rule (20% of the producers who can’t jump the hoops produce 80% of the garbage) but they decided it’s worth the cost of the other 80%.