Monopolies must be dismantled.

Posted Oct 4, 2025 21:12 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
In reply to: Monopolies must be dismantled. by pizza
Parent article: F-Droid and Google's Developer Registration Decree

> I repeat; It's fair to debate what constitutes "fair compensation", but $0 is not it.

Why? That's what Microsoft charges Windows developers. You can spend all your life developing Windows applications without paying anything to Microsoft, not even the Windows license cost.

> So... app writers derive zero benefit from Apple's platform?

Arguably, yes. At this point, you _have_ to support Apple as an app developer. An Android-only app will be a failure in the market if we exclude specialized apps. iOS ends up being a drag on the computing world, resulting in perverted architectures and a lot of wasted time to conform to bizarre iOS restrictions and inadequacies.

> So to develop software for non-iOS platforms one doesn't need "a reasonable development machine" that also depreciates over time?

Not my point. My point is that Apple _already_ gets more than $0 from every iOS developer. Even if they produce completely free applications. You asked about "fair compensation" above, remember? In contrast, Google or Microsoft do not necessarily get anything from individual developers.

> As opposed to the 50% (or greater) cut that was typical when the app store first launched? (I might add that a fee-simple 30% cut was widely lauded in the industry for putting vastly more money in developers' pockets)

At that time, I was selling boxed software for Windows without paying any fees to MS. We did have an MSDN subscription, but it was a fixed (and pretty low) expense.