Agreed - that's going to have some very weirded unintended consequences. It would be in someone's interest at 950k sales that year to basically stop selling. You would need to be sure you can make 150k of sales absolutely the next year or you actually lose money.

I suppose it's a first class problem to have but it's odd why Apple would make (a small number of companies admittedly) have it all.

I suspect it's a policy that will change after Tim Cook reads the viral blog post in 2022

That would be insane, but it is not accurate.

Only the marginal fee goes to 30% -- there is no retroactive application to the first $1MM of income. The new rate applies to future income only.

And unfortunately, triggering the rate increase is sticky. If you go over $1MM is 2021, the 30% rate will apply to all of your income in 2022. (If you are under $1MM in 2022, the rate will reset to 15% for 2023).

This is the actual confusing part. Surely Apple could just apply the 15% rate to the first $1MM of every developer's income in each year instead. It's simpler, and it doesn't create the weird incentive to depress earnings at the end of the calendar year if they are approaching $1MM.