> This is a distinction without a difference. Paying Apple millions per year to merely allow users to download apps that make no revenue from third parties is ridiculous no matter who's paying.

You’re preaching to the choir here.

I’m pleased with my 15% rate tied to revenue. If I do well, they do well, and vice versa, and there’s little to no upfront risk for me.

However, many thought a commission based on revenue was unfair, and some insisted that decoupling the fees and a separate fee for IP would be better.

Well, here it is in very old skool style: an upfront, no-nonsense fee for using IP.

That said, I can’t help but wonder. Which app developer would end up paying millions per year in CTF for an entirely free app?

They’d have to be a developer that:

- chose to forego the App Store and commission-based fees
- distribute their app via a third-party App Store
- not be a non-profit, government entity, or educational entity
- have to have more than 3 million unique installs on iOS devices in the EU in a given year to reach a $/€1M fee

And for my moral compass to start caring, extract 0 value from this hypothetical app

I can’t think of a single app that comes close to this hypothetical.

Besides, there’s a big difference here. The situation, as I interpreted it, would mean that third-party stores are dead on arrival. In contrast, this situation only concerns extremely successful unicorn apps that apparently have very altruistic developers behind them.

> Only under coercion.

In the same way, I breathe in and out every second under coercion. Although if I stop breathing, I die, I can’t just hop on to the nearest Walmart and grab myself a pair of Android lungs, so perhaps not the best analogy.

> The fee is not reasonable

That’s a personal value judgment. I think it’s incredibly reasonable.

Both when you compare it to other upfront fee structures for the use of IP, where anything sub-thousand is unheard of, and if you compare it to more conventional revenue-based fees such as the 5% Epic charges for Unreal after your first million. The latter has the potential to balloon infinitely, whereas, with a per-install fee, it’s by definition capped.

In many ways, it’s like the runtime fee Unity tried to impose but done right. There is a much higher install threshold, not based on lifetime but a rolling install threshold, not tied to revenue, and, of course, the option to avoid the fee altogether.

> and I guarantee that if it developers were allowed to avoid the Core Technology fee by not using Apple's frameworks

It’s not a matter of being allowed or not; it’s by its nature impossible to avoid the use of Apple’s IP entirely.

It’s like me guaranteeing that if I woke up with a trillion dollars in my bank account tomorrow while also finding myself to be the head of state of every country on the planet, I would ensure that everyone on earth would be happy.

Other than that, I doubt your utopia would come to fruition even if it were possible. There are already a whole bunch of non-Apple frameworks with which you can build entire apps, and while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they’re entirely unpopular, it’s a far cry from a majority of apps using them.

> In fact a lot of apps are already mostly web based

You bring up a good point. Web-based apps can entirely avoid any fees, but many users, as well as business customers, primarily care about having a native app.

> and I'm sure would prefer to use a Chromium based engine if they could

I thought the whole vibe was to be against monopolies.
Whatever the case, Chromium engines will also be available with these changes, so hooray, I guess.

> so already today the "benefit" they get from Apple's IP is minimal

The quantity of benefit is irrelevant. Whether it’s used or not is all that matters when it comes to paying for IP.

The other day, I rented a car, and it turned out I didn’t actually need it that much. Alas, I didn’t get a refund.

> considering Apple's underinvestment in web tech

Rather trite argument. Since Apple hired Jen Simmons in 2020, they’ve significantly improved Safari and web support.

Interop benchmark has placed Safari at the top in the last few years, and Safari supports close to everything Firefox supports.

> Apps built on Unity or other game engines also fall into this category, so, a large majority of the App Store's biggest moneymaking category.

Believe it or not, they, too, need to use Apple’s IP to be able to do what they do.

> Electricity? Seriously? Now you're making me chuckle. If you can't tell the difference between a product like the Mac that only one company in the world is allowed to make and a commodity like electricity, I think you should consider that you may be subject to the reality distortion field.

As if electricity and internet service are known for being able to be purchased from a wide selection of companies.
I’d restrict the comment to the US, but my experience outside the US wasn’t exactly a buffet of options either.

Regardless, the point, of course, is that it’s nonsense to blame the fact that you need tools and basic necessities to do something on the company that makes the tools or necessities.

I also need an iPhone to debug my apps properly. Should I write Tim Cook an angry email about that?