Comment by judge2020

While I generally agree, I think the point most people have with being OK with game consoles and not iPhones boils down to:

A. Game consoles are sold at a loss or very near-cost; often they only end up making some <5% per-unit profit due to the sheer volume of their production. Devices with direct evidence for this are PS5[0] and Steam Deck[1]. For iPhones, it can feel unfair when apple is making app store margins on top of their 30%+ per-device margins, but I support the idea that Apple's profit margins take into account app store margins and the devices would be x% more each year if developers could go completely without IAP for in-app digital purchases.

B. Nintendo et al. specifically sell these as "game consoles", so combined with (A), it feels fine that they get their 30%. For iOS, being locked into the App Store serves only the purpose of total security, where basically nothing downloaded from the app store can siphon data from other apps via a sandbox escape or otherwise jailbreak the phone for silent spyware purposes.

0: https://www.techradar.com/news/ps5-has-only-just-stopped-los...

1: https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/gabe-newell-says-steam-... (pretty heavily implied; Steam will also end up making money post-sale via their 30% cut)