This is simply not true. Many OS developers are working in lower income countries. Or aren't even employed yet because they are in school.

Your assessment only works for working developers in high income countries. And even then requiring 99 dollars is insane.

Insane is a bit of a strong word — it seems like a reasonable way to ensure that the world isn't flooded with incredibly low-effort apps. I know, I know — the world is already full of those, but I imagine it would be a lot worse if people didn't have to put down $99.

Also, the $99 is the blanket cost to be an Apple Developer, including access to the App Store, technical support, etc. and it seems like a reasonable fee to ensure those resources aren't swamped.

It is a shame about people who can't afford it — I know Apple has a scholarship program for students but I'm sure it can't do it for everyone. I'm not saying I'm in favor of it. But it seems like there are some pretty clear reasons why this is the way it is beyond "Apple greedy".

The app store is full of low effort apps, and the 99$ entry fee really doesn't matter. I think it still is a "Apple greedy". If I were to operate a personal fleet of devices, I wouldn't be able to build my own software once and run it on the fleet. I'd have to build it everywhere. If Microsoft were to do the same thing, people certainly wouldn't be trying to rationalize it as anything else but the money grab that it is.

> The app store is full of low effort apps

If you notice, I actually mentioned this in my comment. I think it would be much worse. $99 isn't enough to stop everyone from making crappy apps, but it's definitely enough to stop a lot. Think of every low-effort app made by some 12 year old who discovered Xcode for the first time.

> If I were to operate a personal fleet of devices, I wouldn't be able to build my own software once and run it on the fleet. I'd have to build it everywhere.

I don't understand what this means. If I understand you correctly, then no, you can definitely deploy internal apps to Apple devices without putting it on the App Store.

If I can deploy internal apps to Apple devices without getting them notarized, then open source devs can distribute their apps to their users without them being notarized too, no? What is the measurable difference here? Obviously, open source apps still work today, but they won't soon. macOS will become a lot more like iOS soon.

> [the $99 fee] seems like a reasonable way to ensure that the world isn't flooded with incredibly low-effort apps

Lol. In my experience a fee is a way to _ensure_ it is filled with incredibly low-effort apps (which tend to be the most profitable).

Code signing in general is a terrible industry. Malware authors gladly pay those fees, even for EV code signing certificates, because scamming has high margins.

$99 almost seems reasonable until you consider Apple bakes in a mechanism for curation (they own the signing keys, right?).

IMHO code signing should be separate from curation systems and should focus on tying code back to a specific individual, not a company. It’s a huge pain to change your identity vs starting a new company to distribute malware.

The current systems are built to wrest control of everything. They don’t care about quality or accountability.

> Also, the $99 is the blanket cost to be an Apple Developer, including access to the App Store, technical support, etc.

This is actually the problem. If an open source developer doesn't want access to the App Store, technical support, etc., they still have to pay for those things.

I agree Apple should make the developer fee a nominal amount for all kinds of developers.

The baseline for a Mac or iOS OSS developer is still someone with a Mac and many hours of time to spend on non-paying work. So we're probably talking about students and the temporarily unemployed in first-world countries, not so much low-income counties.

Seems like a full developer account should be free for the asking for students, IMO.