Whether you consider the developers a customer of Apple paying for distribution, or a supplier to Apple who takes a cut, is ultimately a semantic distinction. B

Whether you consider the developers a customer of Apple paying for distribution, or a supplier to Apple who takes a cut, is ultimately a semantic distinction. But the conflict of interest it creates — that Apple retains a monopoly on how software is distributed to a device that you ostensibly “own” and sets rates to optimize for their own gain - is the case regardless of the semantics we use. (I’m not entirely opposed to this arrangement; I’m typing this on my iPhone. But I bought it knowing and accepting that I’m partly the product)