Also HN: Apple want to charge HOW MUCH for building an ecosystem?!
There are so many things you could unpack, like for example, the fact that building an ecosystem costs so much now literally because you have to compete with Apple and Google, or, for example, that I don't actually think the issue at hand is how much Apple "deserves" to be able to charge for building an ecosystem, though I'm sure if it came down to it, "30% of nearly all monetary transactions for literally forever on most phones in the U.S." is not the value most people would come to.
I know there's going to be some temptation to argue about that, but sincerely, please don't. It's just not the point. My point really is, why? This thread didn't even have anything to do with this other than being about app distribution.
FWIW I'm not trying to take either side, it's a complex, nuanced topic. But, HN isn't very good at nuance, and I was intending to make a comment on the conflicting viewpoints that many seem to hold, which is a far more interesting situation to me than the specifics of this situation.
You're right that part of the cost of building an ecosystem now is competing with the incumbents, although I'm sure you could make this argument throughout history with different incumbents, if at a smaller scale.
To be clear, I don't really lean to one side or the other on this, I just find it interesting that both of these are common views to hold.
Windows CE/Pocket PC, Symbian, Epoch, J2ME, BREW, Blackberry predated iPhone for a decade, with app stores provided by phone operators.
But it's worse, because it impacts you even if you're not an app developer. Even when you think you're paying other people, Google and Apple often assert that it has a right to the cut, like joining a YouTube membership. When apps are pushed to use IAPs with a cut, you wind up paying more and having less of it go to the intended recipient, and because apps are limited on what they're allowed to communicate, they can't really adequately warn you that this is going to happen. Some smaller apps wherein the IAP cut seriously doesn't make sense, more along the lines of banking, wind up having to just give up altogether on accepting payments, because they simply don't have the power to fight Apple and Google when they get wrongly rejected.
App stores that don't even let you tell people they're being ripped off by app store policies feel like things that people in "hacker" culture would not be apt to defend as good even if they believe it is completely legal, and I sincerely wonder how this became the norm for a lot of people.
I'm also not sure why some of these transactions potentially being scummy makes it any better the way Apple and Google control the markets. If anything, they're profiting hand-over-fist from it and absolutely encouraging it.