> they keep developing better services, devices, and platforms for devs to use (and, they give some of that away for very cheap or free).
Follow the money and Apple, Google and Valve are making a killing off the backs of creators. The cost of delivery is what 1% if that?
And while you're locked into Apple (not that anyone is forcing you - and Apple basically created that whole industry), with Google and Valve, you're free to run your own setup and deal with all the middleman stuff yourself. 30% to hop onto their infrastructure and let them deal with bad payments is a pretty good deal.
In short, you can always tell the people inexperienced in business in these conversations, because they think that 30% is a crushing 'take'. 30% is actually pretty damn good - normally in retail it's what you'd get, rather than what they'd take.
Well, if the cost of delivery and maintenance of these platforms is so low and the charge to developers is so high, why not arbitrage this? Create your own trusted multi-billion hardware/software platform with expedited payment and protection from cheating, and you can cut developers a better deal!
I think you should forget about "hard" costs. They're completely irrelevant to how valuable something is.