> This is virtually indistinguishable from a protection racket: It is a fee that developers must pay if they want to stay in business. And it is a fee which ult

> This is virtually indistinguishable from a protection racket: It is a fee that developers must pay if they want to stay in business. And it is a fee which ultimately harms consumers because these fees are indirectly passed on to users, either through higher prices, or through fewer competing products in the marketplace. I guess this would be great, if it were true. There are over two million competing apps in the market [1], and the vast majority are priced ridiculously competitively at less than a dollar each [2]. That's the average cost, not the median, which would be significantly lower. I'm sure proton isn't happy about this, but considering the ridiculously high salaries app developers are able to command [3] but the market doesn't seem to agree with their assessment. Now, this may be more true about app companies, but the numbers there tell a different story. Based on this analysis [4], the thing killing them isn't the developer fees, its that its ridiculously hard to make any sort of living if your only product is a phone app. The majority of apps simply make no money at all. Adding 30% to 0 doesn't do much for anyone. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263795/number-of-available-apps-in-the-apple-app-store/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263795/number-of-availab... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267346/average-apple-app-store-price-app/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/267346/average-apple-app... [3]: https://www.businessofapps.com/app-developers/research/ios-android-developer-salary/ https://www.businessofapps.com/app-developers/research/ios-a... [4]: https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-revenue-data-and-why-you-should-ignore-it-2bea283d37fc https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/a-bunch-of-average-app-reve...