Then don’t accept subscriptions via in app purchases? Many apps don’t including Netflix and Spotify.

Workarounds existing doesn't negate the rent-seeking.

Also the "necessary costs" argument for the App Store fees falls apart when the unmonetized apps are all free.

So the fact that you don’t have to use Apple’s in app subscriptions for users to be able to subscribe is irrelevant to the argument that apps have to use in app purchases for subscriptions?

You're missing the point. The lack of alternative app stores or the ability to accept payments and control subscriptions via other gateways is the problem. You either use Apple app store/payments and accept the fee or you don't have any transaction ability in the app.

Let's simplify this.

I want to make an iOS app. I've already paid Apple the $100 bucks per year or whatever it is, so I've "done my part".

Then, I want to have in-app subscriptions and payments, and I found a great service, XYZ, that does this.

So, on my own time, with my own device I bought (which by the way, in another money-grubbing move, HAS to be another Apple device, even though there are 0 solid technical reasons to force this), I write the app, I put in the integration for XYZ.

Can I publish this to large amounts of iOS devices?

Can you do in app payments via any of the consoles, Roku, etc without the platform owner getting a cut?

No, and that's not any better.

Plus, are we actually comparing general use mobile computing devices to niche and mostly fixed computing devices?

So a “cell phone” is a “general purpose computing device” but a console isn’t?

They're both Turing machines, if that's what you're getting at.

In practice, no, a console is not a general purpose computing machine.

On iOS, by design, you can install almost any kind of application even without jailbreaking it. Which people do, you can have Excel and Maps and IDEs and whatever.

Consoles, by design, do not allow that. It's almost strictly meant for games and media.

And again. I don't care. Both types of walled gardens should be abolished.

There is nothing about consoles that make them incapable of installing any type of software. They support keyboards and mice.

I don’t think Apple is seriously considering a major play in ads and if they are I think this signals pretty hard that they won’t be doing it off the back of consumer data.

It just doesn’t make sense to their business strategy. Apple is premium, ads are the antithesis of premium. Just doesn’t make business sense.