Opposite for me. The more people complain about Apple on hacker news or elsewhere because they aren’t making enough money and have to play by the App Store rules the more I know it’s the right thing and the more likely I am to buy an iPhone or new Mac. Especially because the arguments are so inconsistent and just come from generic mindshare. People don’t think. Apple Big! Apple bad! Conveniently ignoring that their business practices bring benefits to customers, they have extremely high brand loyalty and approvals, and are making money because people buy iPhones precisely because of the opposite reasons that you espouse here.

I don’t get it. If you hate the iPhone and apple App Store philosophy why can’t you just buy a different phone? Put your money where your mouth is. Apple and the App Store suck? Prove it with your purchases. Don’t sit here and complain about a “monopoly” that makes developers a shit load of money.

Ok how about this. If developers want a different store, they can all pay a fee to Apple to continue to develop new hardware and provide updates for iOS. Sounds fair to me.