The developer is building on Apple's system and owes the entire opportunity to Apple. Without Apple they wouldn't be able to develop the app or find customers for it.
I use safari as my web browser, which is written by Apple.
I didn’t say “no third party content of any kind”, and this discussion is about app stores after all. Apple not having an App Store would still mean I get to keep safari, so the phone is still 95% as useful. I’d miss my baby feeding tracking app and… not much else.
Only the government has “a monopoly on violence” and qualified immunity.
You mean imprison or kidnap. Large companies can stop you from using their ecosystems or entering their property for almost any reason they like.
I could live my entire life without using any one of the large corporations.
They didn't build an ecosystem more than others, they just made sure to kill any potential competitive ecosystem on the same hardware.
That's how ecosystems work.
How did that work out for Facebook phone or Amazon phone or Microsoft phone or the myriad of others that tried?
Apple built the best ecosystem and that's why it prints money.
That would be great for the planet ...