But yes, it is hard to imagine a way for the App Store to exist in its current form if the ruling stands. If you can use an outside payment provider taking a 3-5% cut, nobody is going to use Apple directly and pay 15/30%.
What are some of the options? No 1st-party App Store? Dramatically increased annual dev fee? Devs pay a per-GB fee for customer downloads of “free” apps?
It’s hard to believe that the annual developer fee plus the revenue from the small minority of devs for which paying the Apple commission makes sense will cover the cost of running the App Store.
I don’t think you will get that choice. The App Store either goes away (for non-Apple software) or the cost structure changes such that it doesn’t matter who your payment provider is.
I could be wrong!
But even if it does, the profitability of Apple's business is Apple's problem. If their iOS store is only profitable through anti consumer (I can't install my own software on my own device) and anti competitive measures (you must give apple a 30% cut off all sales and they have veto power over your app at any point) then perhaps it shouldn't exist in it's current form.
Doesn't this argument regarding Apple's game ecosystem and platform fees apply to Nintendo's as well? And every other business model that relies on platform fees?
Is there any coherent argument that it is OK for eShop/Xbox/PSN to charge 30% platform fees but that it isn't OK for Apple's game store to do the same?
Microsoft tried to argue that the difference is that Xbox is sold below component/manufacturing cost (for some period of time) and needs platform fees to compensate, but 1) Switch was always profitable by that metric and 2) that metric ignores R&D cost amortization.
Printer manufacturers also sell below costs and then screw consumers on the ink. That approach is equally anti-consumer. Especially when they start adding DRM to the ink cartridges.
Of course there are alternate game stores on Android and yet Google Play still charges the same sort of platform fees.
And in a bold departure from 30% platform fees ... Amazon AppStore allowed developers to keep up to 70% of the purchase price.