Is Jailbreaking a Real Security Threat?

Firstly, I'm not against hacking in the strictest sense of the word i.e. tinkering to find out how something works.

The original iPhone did not have an SDK. So the motivation to jailbreak in order to tinker was somewhat justified. However with the release of the SDK and with so many apps out there at low prices, is there really still a need to jailbreak?

An iPhone developer can choose to either give his app away or sell it. Installing jailbreaking software annuls that choice effectively returning control to the consumer. Unfortunately a lot of people jailbreak to pirate apps and not to tinker.

As for the rest of your rant about Apple's greed. Consider that an iPhone developer chooses to make his app available for free. Apple makes no money out of it, yet has to supply hosting, bandwidth and other administrative costs. If free speech/beer is valued that highly to the developer, then write a web app since all half-way decent smartphones have browsers. No need to even pay the bozo tax aka iPhone developer fee.

When I'm on someone else's property, I behave according to the house rules. I don't shit on the lawn just because I disagree with the owner's choice of invited guests. Most people usually register their displeasure by just leaving the party.