- Customer installs AltStore and downloads a malicious app.
- Device is compromised.
- Customer contacts Apple Support and blames Apple for an "insecure" system. Time is spent trying to help the customer resolve this.
Apple
does incur costs that are not covered by a one-time purchase of the hardware. Those apps are utilizing Apple-developed and -maintained frameworks year over year. Who covers that cost?
It's a catch-22. Consumers (us) demand "innovation" from Apple year after yeaer. Apple invests heavily into that, and we expect to get those benefits for free? No... that investment needs to be covered by ongoing revenues well past the device purchase.
Apple used to charge for macOS upgrades each year, but moved to a "free" upgrade in 2013, with the cost being covered through other revenue streams. It's not really a free upgrade. We pay the cost through our app purchases and subscription fees.
It was October 22, 2013 when Apple released OS X 10.9: "Mavericks" and made the operating system "free". This aligned it more closely with their iOS business model, but came with the lack of ongoing revenue to fully support it.