Counter examples: Audible. Amazon. Netflix.
The contract nuance is more subtle than what you described. Iirc the app can’t directly link to the payment system on the website, but Audible (for example) has an intermediate currency (“points”) which can be transacted in-app. Real world currency transactions must be made on the website, outside of the app. Without the website account and transactions, the app is pretty useless.
The Netflix app is perhaps marginally more useful without logging in and Amazon is marginally more useful than that.
In practice, what it boils down to is a calculus about whether the an app is powerful enough for its absence on the platform to be a dent to Apple. When RandomApp1245 is not on an iPhone, no one cares and it's the app that loses business, so they suck it and pay Apple the danegeld. If Netflix is not any iPhones, I suspect there will be plenty of people for whom it will be a deal-breaker.
If it is, there will magically be exemptions added. Which is how some of the App store rules read like a complicated boolean algebra of if this, but not that, unless this, but only in case of that.
Let's not pretend all this is happening out of some fundamental noble meta-principle.
Hmm maybe epic and steam should be banned and just use the windows store. They provide the platform after all.
Microsoft also offers an app store, and even a way to restrict Windows to only running software from that app store (S mode), but they take the somewhat-standard 30%. One nice thing they do that I think Apple should adopt is taking a smaller cut if you visited the store through a web link (meaning Microsoft didn't provide the "discovery" and thus shouldn't be compensated for it).
I don't mind Apple doing whatever they want with their own store, I have an issue with them dictating that their own store is the ONLY way to use an iPhone.
You can do a beta version and run it through TestFlight.
You can get an Enterprise license and run your own App Store — MDM vendors like JAMF do this all the time. And they can help you set up your own App Store, too.
There are alternatives. You just don’t like them.
Yes, but that's because Microsoft _allows_ people to install software this way. Apple doesn't give that option for iPhones, and it's kind of strange to think that forbidding that somehow entitles them to a 30% cut.
It's the same thing with my Switch, Xbox, 3DS, whatever. They all keep working well over time because apps are limited in what they can do, and they are curated.
Meanwhile, because on Windows and macOS you aren't limited to their respective app stores, the app stores don't have as complete a selection as their locked-down counterparts, meaning you have to go outside the store to get everything you need. Consequently, a Windows computer gets slower over time, and you're never sure if you've completely uninstalled something, unless you use one of the now numerous 500MB+ launchers/updaters. MacOS is marginally better, but I still have to go and clean out LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons, and wonder if it's the Razer kext causing kernel panics because it was cheaper for them to make one than build everything necessary into the mouse. On both OSs, it's extremely nontrivial to figure out if some software is causing the device to wake from sleep and drain the battery. The consequence of allowing application developers to do anything is that they will do everything, and it's very hard as an OS developer to keep all the user software well-behaved.
I think Microsoft actually tried something like that on one of their other platforms. Xbox, maybe?
I gather it was a big failure so they abandoned their proprietary ways and opened it up to Steam, Epic Game Store, etc., but it was too little too late.
Too bad though - I heard it had some good games like Halo, Forza, and Gears of War. ;-)
This really needs concerted action on part of 5-6 big apps, such as Netflix, Facebook etc. Anything short of that, and Apple is going to keep eating their lunch like a school bully.
This is the part that Apple took issue with. Either they remove references to the external paid service, or they provide a way to pay for it from the app, with the usual fee. It's misleading to characterize this as "Apple forces a free app to become paid". Apple is just doing their usual thing of requiring that payments for features of an app cannot bypass Apple's payment system.
Again, they are paying $99/year. Whether that is enough is different set of questions though.