> The difference here is that Apple treats end users as customers and charges them money directly.

It sounds to me like you're arguing it's valid for Apple to both treat its end users as customers and sell them to companies like Netflix as a product.

Look, I admire that Apple tries to have a direct relationship with customers. What went on with Netflix was contrary to that goal. It is movement in the direction of Facebook/Google/etc. And Apple should be better than that.

> At least Facebook is free. (actual laugh out loud)

I also really genuinely don't understand the derision about this. If I'm going to be a product (and it sounds to me that you're arguing Apple has a right to treat me like a product) then of course I would like to get some benefit out of that. Or, don't treat me like a product.

I don't understand what's ridiculous about wanting a company to pick a lane on what relationship they'll have with their customers and commit to whether they're going to sell to them or not. I don't get why it would be beneficial to me as a consumer for a company like Apple to try and simultaneously extract value from me directly and extract value from me indirectly as an asset they can sell to other companies.

Like, go ahead, make fun of Facebook for giving me a product for "free", but you're arguing that it's valid for Apple to be Facebook in the sense that it's selling access to me, and then to also directly charge me substantial amounts of real money for the privilege of being its product that it sells to developers. Facebook is evil, but it doesn't have the guts to try and make me pay for the privilege of being sold to another company.

> claimed that Apple's app store provided zero value or something close to it, which I think is absurd.

I think offering value and offering a service are two different things and we should treat them as two different things. It's too easy otherwise for rent extractors to suck up value out of systems. Apple's argument is that it deserves a certain payment structure because it controls access to a market. Or course it's worthwhile to try and figure out whether Apple is providing a real service by acting as a middleperson in both directions simultaneously, or whether it's just collecting extra rent.

> Do you also hate Netflix because they're a middleman between you and the actual performers in the shows you watch? They don't pass your entire subscription fee onto the directors, writers, and actors.

They most definitely do pass on a portion of that subscription fee to directors, writers, and actors. Netflix pays companies to be on their service, not the other way around. And of course it is reasonable to ask whether or not the percentage Netflix takes is fair or whether they're just extracting rent from a captive market. But this is kind of a silly comparison, Netflix's relationship to studios is almost a complete inverse of Apple's relationship with developers. Netflix courts content producers and pays for content to be either licensed to them or created for them in-house.

Typically, when we get into a scenario where both consumers and producers are paying a middleperson to connect them, we should ask questions. We should ask if there are terms being imposed by that middleperson to make it difficult to reach out to customers in any other way (for example, a ban on mentioning other payment methods). We should ask if there are lock-in mechanisms that are designed to artificially increase the cost for consumers to leave the platform. We should ask how many distribution methods exist (are there only 2 streaming services in the world?) and whether or not the current market is competitive.

And we should definitely ask what the value add of that middleperson is and what they think their value add is and what they think is their primary service that they sell. A responsible, positive middleperson doesn't sell a market, it sells services that make it easier to interact with that market, or it licenses and resells content from another market. I think it's a really reasonable question to ask what about the market access that Apple is arguing that developers "owe" them for hasn't already been payed for. We want middlepeople to provide a service that justifies using them over direct access, we don't want them to just be rent-seekers and we don't want their position of power to largely exist only because of restrictions and platform limitations that they created.