Comment by babypuncher

I think the point is that Steam manages to do just fine while charging 30%, on a platform where developers could easily choose to self-publish. For small developers, that 30% is worth it because the value Steam brings to them is worth more than the revenue it takes. The only ones choosing to go elsewhere are massive publishers that can market their own storefronts, and indie devs taking large up front payments from Epic to leave Steam.

I can see both sides of the argument here. It sucks having no choice as a developer, and feeling forced pay Apple a tax just to get paid for your work. It's especially egregious with subscriptions, where Apple doesn't even do any of the content delivery. However, as a user, I think it would also suck if a huge player like Facebook or Google decided to open up their own iOS App Stores, and developers started flocking to them as a means to escape Apples increasingly strict app privacy rules.