Probably. But just because you think they are expensive it's not okay to exploit their infrastructure "back", especially when you are, in fact, not paying anything.

I'm fully on your side with them being near monopolies and them being overly expensive. But there's no arguing that they have expenses and they need to make money.

Google is the one being exploitative. The 30% is almost pure profit.

How did you think F droid managed to run for free if it cost that much to host apps?

Somehow you said you were fully on his side about monopolies but claimed Google the was the one being exploited. This doesn't make much sense.

Of course it does. Phone manufacturers exploit child labor in third world countries to make their phones (and that's not okay, for the record). But if I rob their shipments and steal their phones, I'm wronging them anyway. Being a criminal does not exclude you from being a victim.

And, as said in a sister comment, I'm fully on your side of 30% being to much. But that does not mean that I think they should get nothing.

>if I rob their shipments and steal their phones

This is supposed to be analogous to publishing an app and asking for donations?

>Being a criminal does not exclude you from being a victim.

This is not a criminal dispute nor analagous to a criminal dispute in any way, shape or form.

You said it's a contradiction that I say that a) Google exploits developers (in a way) and b) developers [can try to] to exploit Google. I made an over-the-top example to show that these two are not mutually exclusive.

I think by using an irrelevant example you inadvertently demonstrated the exact opposite - that they are.

If two parties "economically exploit each other equivalently", there is no exploitation.

These are not the same people, however. There are the developers which give in to the rules and process their payment via the app store. These are somewhat exploited by having 30% of their profits taken. Then there are those which circumvent the store payments by using external integrations and therefore exploit Google by denying them their fair share[0]. These groups are distinct.

[0] Whereas the "fair share" is not necessarily 30%, but >0%.

Are you making the case that Google risks to go bankrupt because some small open-source maintainer adds a donation link to their app?

Those ten non-colluding platforms would quickly dwindle back down to the two we have now, for many reasons, network effects being the primary. Look at any other space with similar platforms, you have 1 or 2 at most.

Hell, look at PC gaming where there are no restrictions. You have Steam (same 30% cut) and... Epic?

Agreed. I have bought way more apps than I would have otherwise because Apple already had my CC and I have some trust in their curation (I know it’s not perfect). If we went to a free for all model we’d end up right back here with maybe another store?

Given the scams out there users are already reluctant to enter their CC details, so a natural trust network effect would weed out everyone else except the biggest players.

And GOG and quite a few publisher-specific launchers (i.e. Blizzard Launcher, U-Play, Wargaming Launcher ...). I'd love to have all my games simply integrated into steam, but I like that people can simply go with their own launcher if they dislike the politics or conditions of one.