This is also the reason why I dont buy the argument about App Store 30% cut bringing you the development tools. Those are well covered by the $99 and more. Now thinking about it, I would be surprised if the reviewing of Apps were not covered by the $2B annual developer fees alone.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/there-are-now-100-million-...
Keep in mind that the term "registered developer" is fairly ambiguous. Does it include non-paying developers? Does it include all developers under a single business account (e.g. at one of my jobs, I was a registered developer under a broader organizational account)?
The point would still stand though that the total revenue from Apple Developer subscriptions would not be insignificant (perhaps insignificant to Apple’s overall revenue, but still enough to be a sizable startup’s budget on its own), which I should have noted in the original article.
Their documentation suggests otherwise[1] (scroll down to “Benefits and Resources”). “Safari Extensions distribution” and “Software distribution outside the Mac App Store” are listed on the column of the 99 USD fee.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
Just remembered that Safari now only lets you install extensions from the App Store, so that would actually make sense if a paid developer account is now required.
There’s yet another reason why Safari has so few extensions.
As a point of comparison, in 2019, Apple did about 50 billion in sales [1], which means they made about $15 billion
In 2018 (latest I could find numbers for) they reportedly had 20 million registered developers [2] so that's another $2 billion. That's 3.5% of their 2019 net income of $55 billion [3] (of course there are costs to running the app store, distribution, etc that aren't accounted for in here).
It makes me think of Costco -- whose membership fees make up nearly all their net income [4]. Don't make money from the thing, make money from enabling access to the thing -- well or I guess in Apple's case, make money from both.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/apple-app-store-had-estimate...
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/04/app-store-hits-20m-registe...
[3] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/net-inc...
[4] https://money.com/costco-doesnt-make-much-money-selling-you-...