Author here—I guess, to a degree, that’s how Apple sees it too, it’s just they think they deserve a larger percent than developers want to give. There are apps—

Author here—I guess, to a degree, that’s how Apple sees it too, it’s just they think they deserve a larger percent than developers want to give. There are apps—business software including Adobe and Microsoft’s subscriptions, media subscriptions, and more—that offer subscriptions directly on their site, plus offer in-app purchase subscriptions on their mobile apps. If you’ve already subscribed on their site, Apple gets nothing, but Apple gets a percent of any sales that originate from the App Store. If it were closer to just payment processing + an affiliate cut (say 3% plus a 7% affiliate cut) perhaps it’d frustrate devs less. And for what it’s worth, Apple does take only 15% on subscriptions after the first year which gets closer.