>The actual solution is very simple Pretending doesn't make a problem go away. The reality of your solution is anticompetitive and would crush small developers

>The actual solution is very simple Pretending doesn't make a problem go away. The reality of your solution is anticompetitive and would crush small developers. Your solution would also run afoul of competition legislation in the EU and beyond. The OS and app store aren't magic, they're developed and run by people, software, hardware, and electricity. None of those are free, all of them require constant investment and training/maintenance, and a supporting management and logistical structure. What you're asking for is for all the current cost-free items to be pay-for items. Neglecting all the other costs in the equation doesn't make them go away, but let's see your idea through: perhaps it might seem fairer to you if each individual download, update, app review and every act of moderation required a line item fee, but to rational people that seems like a hellish way to bill a service that punishes apps that are either not commercially driven or low-earners. For small developers that would be a squeeze that encourages apps to flail, decay and worsen security issues. This model could easily be seen as anticompetitive because it enforces an uneven playing field. A $100 annual developer fee wouldn't cover an hour of professional overview, it certainly doesn't cover the cost of ongoing app review, it wouldn't cover the cost of not having a managed backup, insurance, or an up to date system. The lack of 3rd party stores on Android is because it doesn't make good business, frankly"good" and "cheap" sit at opposite ends of a service offering, no amount of "nerding harder" will fix that. Your thoughts on a service are divorced from reality, they're frankly naive. If the cost to consumers/developers was divided out in the way you suggest, the annual dev membership would be several thousand and all interactions would be billable items. This would be fine for Microsoft, Google, etc - but present absolutely no chance for a small developer to establish a business. Working from a model that takes a slither of revenue when revenue is made is simply the fairest way to go about collecting an appropriate fee. It's also the norm with every other industry, none of which seem to get the foaming-at-the-mouth reactions that I read on here.