I don't mind the 30% at all, I just mind that I'm forced to because they banned the creation of any and all alternatives. The fact that someone would need to build their own phone + OS just to avoid a fee is both hilarious and scary

"Provide" is a bit vague word for "sell". They _sell_ their hardware and force the developers to use their tools.

But you already pay them $99/year for a dev account... why do you have to pay them for every purchase as well?

$99/y is really nothing compared to the 30% cut when you look at companies like Epic or Supercell.

I’m certain that they could not continue to provide the App Store in its current form without any fee.

Because the 99$/year are for the dev platform and the 15%/30% cut are for using the infrastructure needed for in app purchases.