> I simply don't understand why developers keep investing their time on platforms that are openly hostile to them.

It's because the users are there. It's similar to things like YouTube. Every YouTuber complains about YouTube... but there is no other place where their random video is going to be recommended to a million strangers. (Twitch is similar.) So, they put up with it.

It boils down to what problem you want to solve. If you can figure out how to convince Mac users to switch to Linux, then you can be successful in your approach of "ditch Apple for being evil" or whatever. If you can't, then you have to find a new line of work (there is plenty of software engineering to be done that never touches an Apple product), or you have to put up with the poor developer experience.

It's also unlikely to be sunshine and roses on the other side of the fence. For everything that's bad about platform X, platform Y probably has just as many annoyances. If you're looking for perfection, you're going to have to remake the world in your image from scratch. That's a lot of work!

It's hard to make money building for an OS like Linux whose users expect everything to be free and open source.

If you want to sell software for money, Linux app development is not the right business to be in.

It’s because no one (mainstream) uses Linux. Developers make these projects and still want lots of users and people to find use in the products.

Developing for Linux leaves you with a smaller range of users than Windows and Mac.

Smaller group and often less willing to put out cash for it (besides the few who would be willing to pay substantially more to get great applications on Linux).

This was the belief for a while, but it seems that isn't totally true.

https://www.compoundtheory.com/some-arguments-against-linux-...

https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-p...

"Pricing wise, we haven’t noticed anything that distinguishes Linux users from everyone else. They are no more cost conscious than Mac / Windows users. They are definitely willing to pay for software."

As an on-again/off-again linux user, I have paid for software or donated to many projects and it seems others are willing to do the same, however it is still a much much smaller group.

I know many developers working on Linux laptops (web backends.) I do since 2009. Would I develop some GUI tool with the aim to sell it? No chance. Gnome or KDE, apt, yum, flatpack, snap, etc? No thank you. I take what's available and that's it. Ubuntu has proven for 11 years that's more than enough to give me a desktop I like (currently a heavily customized Gnome Shell) and pay my bills.