> How the hell did we get to this point? Where ostensibly reasonable people feel entitled to shove their crapware on any storefront they want without paying for

> How the hell did we get to this point? Where ostensibly reasonable people feel entitled to shove their crapware on any storefront they want without paying for it? Apple and Google have a duopoly with their respective app stores, they hold the keys to the majority of the customers since the customers only buy through their platforms. So it's different in at least that way. It's not as if I couldn't host my own downloads, take my own payments and give my own authentication, but no one could install my app without a long-winded process they are very unlikely to go through. It's not like they don't provide services for their cut, I get it, they host the infrastructure, maintain the platform and so on, but I only have to use their services because otherwise I'm selling to a void, a void that they created. This would not be the case had they not captured the entire consumer market with their app stores, and had all their default OS settings on their market leading phones default to only accept their app stores. If there was a vibrant ecosystem of third-party installer capabilities, say the ability to install something from a website easily with all my own infrastructure like in the wild west days, it wouldn't be an issue (customer easy, not tech wiz easy). But they lock it all up and funnel everyone through their stores, and so as a seller you're coerced into their ecosystem and they get to take whatever cut they want. We have no negotiating power, we are locked out of customers if we don't participate, and we are regularly screened and bullied by the app approval processes, so the comparison to extortion isn't as far-fetched as you're making it out to be. Here's a thought experiment, whenever someone complains about the app store banning their app and them losing all their income, tonnes of people reply with "You shouldn't have put all your eggs in one basket!" so okay, where are the other baskets? Where else can I sell an app? And be reasonable, be sensible, it's nowhere. There are no other options for a real business operating in a commercial reality. You can technically sell elsewhere, but I can technically sell chocolate bars in the desert, that doesn't make it a reasonable option.