Apple makes money from people and developers that’s it. Microsoft AWS Alphabet etc make money from corps. I mean you can pretty much get Windows for free and Microsoft doesn’t care they get money from SQL, Windows Server, Azure etc. Apple has none of that. If Apple doesn’t get money from developers they have the option to get money from end users and that’s not gonna cut it to continue being a leading smartphone.
That is not true. Developers pay Apple and pay Microsoft, AWS or whatever for the backend and hosting their digital services. The App itself is, let's say a shell over a myriad of technological materials in play to make an App, not just Apple materials. Rebranding developers as corps does not make this less true.
The difference is that Apple requires developers / businesses to hand over whatever they produce (not just the shell they created) to them along with the cash register (property transfer). The others suppliers of the necessary materials do not. This is ok at a small scale but at a very large scale, sieging billions of people its akin to a mass property transfer. It does stifle competition and reduce value of ones property in the long run towards those that nurture these practices.
If this property transfer scheme is allowed by law at such massive scale, it will spread. It will spread to Windows, macOS, whatever. Computing devices are everywhere, more are coming with even more immersive and reality bending capabilities. VR glasses ... heck brain chips! The human body will be immersed in the digital sea. People will not be able to differentiate between what is digital and what it is not. Today, that is already happening. Take for instance the concept of books. They used to take a physical form, now they do not. Did it stopped being a book? No. But Apple charges for book sales in digital form, well because its digital. Take for instance, dating arrangements, is it digital or not? Apple charges for dating arrangements. They left our "potatoes" alone, but there is nothing to say that in the future they might argue that there is value in experience in selling potatoes in the the iPhone ... heck look at how many people use the iPhone and the likes ... right?
The requirement of having to transfer to Apple your properties and the cash machine, while you keep all other costs, in exchange of a bunch of APIs, because otherwise the company would not be able to make great money, is based on a huge fallacy. Anyway, this would not be a problem if not combined with siege made of smartphones that everyone is using around the Internet ... hence any and all businesses.
Apple proposal does not guarantee that is not the case. In fact, is full of traps to steer the business population and users away from not transferring their property and cash register to Apple. Look at the rules for what they call Web Publishing (commonly know as self publishing, fundamentally a way to self publish an app) ... you need first have been in the App Store and have at least a million downloads in the previous year ... you need to first hand over you property and cash register. Then you have the CTF on top. It's easy to verify that Apps in the App Store pay no CTF. Heck Apps like Facebook, Twitter and many others actually pay 0 for the materials and more. If these giants would be penalized if they move out under this proposal. You can imagine the minions. This is clearly steering as well intentioned it might be.
The way I see it. To have a non steering environment. Simply put, the cost of using Apple materials to build a software application should be the same whether offered through the Apple App Store or through any other channel. Also there should be no barriers to other channels of App distribution, as clearly is the case of Web Distribution (Agency free, self publishing). Otherwise it will not be in compliance with DMA anti-steering measures.
Apple it self knows what anti-steering means when dealing with devs in the App Store. They require the listed price of an App or Digital Service in the App Store to be not more then the listed price the developer may practice through other channels, such has its own website . ... in case of Multiplatform digital services. This is a self serving is anti-steering measure made by Apple. Otherwise devs may try to steer users to buy on their sites where distribution costs maybe lower by offering more advantageous prices. People would of course prefer to buy on those, especially because today most reach the App on the App Store, not by searching the App Store but through searching the Web. If developers are found giving better prices in their website, they get a cease or desist letter as it's in breach of contract. If found several times ... the App or digital service is probably banned ... your property, your iPhone, will no longer have an App to access your supplier / dev service. This is common practice, say Amazon does this too, yet without using your smartphone for that matter. So reason would say that Apple also knows what are steering measures. At least these pricing conditions used to be until 2020 ... don't know if it is still there, because policies are ever changing.
People have various ideologies that iOS shouldn't be the way it is, but its market success is proof that their value proposition isn't just self serving but that is has genuine value to its users.
Yes, indeed the iPhone, sold to the population is a massive market success. Its great. But that is one hand of the equation. There is another equation on the other hand that is focused on property transfer.
What is at play is the future of commerce and an attempt by Gatekeepers to reconfigure the notion of property ownership for all things using computing devices. Apple is not alone. This scheme take many forms. Google has theirs, Amazon has theirs, so does Microsoft. Apple case is just more evident and exposed by the media.
