Having been so close to bankruptcy seemed to have tainted their behaviour, that now anything goes to protect what in the end saved them, moreso than in other companies.

No, not “moreso than in other companies” — maximizing profits is something that effectively all companies do.

The difference is that smaller companies can get away with anticompetitive behaviour but there are regulations for market leaders.

What Apple was allowed to do when they were a disrupter is different from what they are allowed to do with a dominant postion in the ecosystem.

PS Saying all companies are greedy and would abuse a market position is not a moral defense of Apple’s behaviour, it’s a defense of antitrust regulations.

Do you know any other marketplace / reseller who puts a message: "By the way, if you book directly with the provider and cut us out, it will be cheaper"?

I can fully understand Apple's position. They created the system that customers love, developers will have to pay something to get access to those customers.

Apple doesn't have to explain to customers the value. Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.

> I can fully understand Apple's position

They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.

> Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.

You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.

Anybody who is buying or using an iPhone today knows what they're getting.

That’s what allows Apple to abuse their position as a quasi-monopoly (as a platform for app developers adjusted by user spending they are effectively that in multiple markets).

It's repeated again and again among hackers that Apple is a monopoly. While selling less devices than their biggest competitor. While having a much smaller install base for their OS than Android.

> They want to maximize their revenue, just like any other company and there is absolutely nothing else to it.

Oh, I had no idea.

> You don’t get to pick and choose which features do you want and most people don’t really care.

What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.

Any store that can will take a cut from producers, whether that is a physical store like your local supermarket, or a digital store like Apple's.

The question is why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms, and why hackers hate that so much? How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?

> While selling less devices than their biggest competitor

That doesn’t matter that much (when taking about app developers) compared to how much money they are spending. A single iPhone user in the US and other rich countries is worth a dozen of Android users in India/African countries etc.

Also even if not literally a monopoly they can effectively behave like a monopoly and abuse their position because no tech company targeting consumers can afford to not have an iOS app.

> What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.

Not what I meant and not how it works. I’m using an iPhone in-spite of their abusive practices and restrictions because their other features/advantages compared to Android outweigh that in my case. It’s basically a shit sandwich…

> why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms

Because they have more money?

> How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?

Yes, that exactly what I’m saying. Apple won (clearly because of the merits of their products) and now they can squeeze developers and consumers to a very high degree without any negative consequences. That’s how monopolies (of course it’s scale, Apple is not literally a monopoly, for that matter neither was Standard Oil back in 1906, they had a comparable market share to Apple these days) work regardless of how exactly they became one, they get to keep all the market surplus that would go to consumers in a more competitive market.

> Because they have more money?

I think this quote illustrates well your perspective and the general perspective of hackers here. Apple users spend more on software because they're just so dumb and don't know how to compile their apps and set up a self-hosted solution.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm very happy to spend money on quality software that I need to solve real world problems, instead of suffering with low-quality FOSS or ad supported software just to save a few bucks. I prefer saving my headache instead, so that I can tinker because I choose to, not because I have to. I think most non-enterprise software customers think the same way. They want something to solve their needs and are fine to pay a fair price for that. So they buy Apple products and later iOS/MacOS software.

If other tech companies cared at all about their product and their customers, they would do the same as Apple. But it's easier to sell to enterprise clients and spy on free users to sell ads instead.

> I think this quote illustrates > Apple users spend more on software because they're just so dumb and don't know how to compile their apps and set up a self-hosted solution

Never meant anything even remotely close to that. Apple users tend to have higher incomes and therefore can afford to spend much more than average (globally) Android users. I see absolutely nothing wrong about people spending money on quality software (the opposite really and I entirely agree with your point about ad supported and OS consumer software).

> they would do the same as Apple

Well yeah, arguably that was one of the main reasons behind their success. However I don’t see how do these things contradict each other, Apple can continue producing great products while being less abusive towards developers who have much more limited bargaining power.

My apologies for reading something into your words that wasn't there. It just sounded so dismissive to say that they spend more money because they have more money, which is an attitude I've often heard, and which isn't true.

Most Android/Windows/Linux users in the developed world (and they are billions) spend less on software than iOS/MacOS users, even though they can well afford it. Small time developers on those platforms are left to beg for donations (that never come), or bundle their software with ads and spyware that some big company pays them for. If they want to make a living on their work.

Developers serving Apple platforms are as far as I know better off reimbursement-wise than developers serving other platforms. Apple takes their cut, but until somebody voluntarily offers developers something better I think it's misguided to go against Apple.

People say that Microsoft got hit with these kind of lawsuits in the 90s, but as far as I remember, they were threatening PC hardware vendors if they offered competitor's software – which is clearly an anti-competitive measure. Not a reply to you, just a general comparison.

No, most people still do not know about how onerous the App Store rules are.

Nor how dangerous first-party services like iMessage still are, for zero-click exploits like Pegasus. The average iPhone user knows almost nothing about their device outside of what Apple directly markets to them as true.

Do you mean they don’t wan the public to know that they take 30% of sales?

Or perhaps that prices are 43% higher as a result of Apple taking their cut.

I would expect such a claim to be backed with facts.

I would expect someone who wants something from someone else to formulate a polite, specific request, and to then submit the request in a manner somewhere on the spectrum between respectfully and deferentially.

Unless I totally misunderstood, and you don't want anything, and are just expressing that the universe failed to live up to your expectations. In which case: my bad, sorry for the misunderstanding!

Where did you get the 43% number is that specific enough?

If Apple's fees cost 30% of the price, then the actual developers who make the software must raise prices to make up for Apple's fees. How much, though?

One might intuitively guess 30%, bringing $1 to $1.30. But Apple will take a cut of this price increase as well: $1.30 * 70% = $0.91, so still losing money to Apple's fees.

The actual amount they must raise the prices is (1 - (1 / 0.7)) = 0.428, or roughly 43%.

Doing this math backwards to factor out Apple's fees yields a confirmation: $1.43 * 70% ≈ $1