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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Apple introduce the fee as 30%, and then the competition copied after?

This doesn't mean the status-quo is ethical or fair, it simply means arbitrary pricing became standardised because the "competition" understood "if Apple can get away with sky-high commissions, then we can too.".

All of the consoles pre-date the App Store by decades if not longer, Steam predates it by about half a decade and the only exception is Google which copied Apple's iPhone system entirely (the original Android phones looked like Blackberry clones before Google quickly copied the iPhone form factor and started ditching the need to have buttons). If I recall correctly the 30% came from Nintendo back in the NES days and at one stage Nintendo used to charge 35% before bringing it inline with everyone else. Given Apple was last to the market and that Nintendo charged more at one stage, I'm not sure it's fair to say anyone but Google copied Apple, if anything Apple copied them.

Furthermore I'd argue that Steam's 30% is far more egregious than Apple's 30% because Steam provide the store front, distribution system and some nominal gameplay services compared to Apple providing an entire ecosystem of APIs and services. In Steam's defence they were offering developers 70% of their revenues rather than the 30% that publishers would normally give them via retail stores in an age when digital distribution was relatively new.

Of course the counterpoint is that Epic Games takes 12% which is curious because Tim Sweeney thinks they could be profitable with 8% but also will charge more than the 12% in places too which makes it a not entirely fair comparison to compare the other platforms flat 30% with Epic's variable 12% or more rate.
 
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I am so looking forward to having to run memory hogging antivirus on my phone just like Mac/Windows/Android. Either that or MDM forcing AppStore only anyways so all apps that ditch the AppStore will be unavailable.

Super pumped. All so my fellow Macrumors users can sideload their SNES emulators and Snapchat hax when the walled garden breaks.

Totes excited that I’ll have to worry about anyone in my contacts having malware on their phone sharing my location, messages to them, camera rolls, etc.

Not even trying to take sides here but Apple's walled garden does not really provide security - shady apps have slipped into the App Store multiple times, and you can run arbitrary code (including malware) by exploiting iOS.

Recently, according to Zerodium, they're sitting on so many iOS zero days they aren't even accepting many new ones anymore.

That's the type of thing you should be concerned with if security is your concern. Not whether the OS has a walled garden or not.
 
Not even trying to take sides here but Apple's walled garden does not really provide security - shady apps have slipped into the App Store multiple times, and you can run arbitrary code (including malware) by exploiting iOS.

Recently, according to Zerodium, they're sitting on so many iOS zero days they aren't even accepting many new ones anymore.

That's the type of thing you should be concerned with if security is your concern. Not whether the OS has a walled garden or not.

Let’s talk facts there are real posts on the number of Android devices with malware vs iOS. Is the walled garden perfect? No. Zero days? Really? You mean exploits that require physical access to the device? No solution is perfect but how can anyone say that that opening iOS won’t immediately open up piracy and malware. It’s a sheer numbers game. Android is the easy target let’s not level the playing field. I’m sure every major hacking/privacy group is sitting on a ready to go website ready to launch if Apple has to open up.

How many Apple devices have users losing everything to Malware compared to iOS in the wild? There’s your answer.
 
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