Nilay Patel on this week's The Vergecast:

You can just see that they picked the finances over the product over and over again. And if they had just figured out a way to make in-app purchases worth more to developers than leaving the ecosystem, developers, I think, would have picked in-app purchases every single time. It's just easier. And they didn't. Instead, they punished the ability to compete.

This is such a good way of putting it, and it really makes me think back to how Microsoft behaved when they had massive market power. "What are you going to do about it?" is a strong position to have, but it doesn't make you a lot of friends.

And I know some people will read this and say, "Matt, Apple has always existed to make money, you just finally noticed," and honestly, I find this to be an extremely reductive way to look at companies and how they make decisions. People act like companies are legally beholden to their shareholders to act like a dick, when that's simply not the case. The reason Apple was able to develop the sort of following that they have is by making products that are genuinely useful to people, and from product designers who prioritized great experiences compared to what you could get from other products on the market. The challenge, and the temptation, is that when you get power, it's hard not to use it. It's hard to walk into a meeting and explain how you're going to reduce revenue, right? I think something like that has happened with App Store revenue. It's not their primary revenue source, nor is it even a major one in the grand scheme of things (Tim Cook seemed nonplussed that Trump's tariffs would likely cost Apple just under $1 billion in the next quarter, so it's not like they are desperate for every last penny). But it's hard to look at an amount of money that you're making and say, "we don't want to make that money anymore."

But you have to consider the other costs here, and those are reputational costs that you suffer from being a dick. People like me have been arguing for years that the reputational cost of Apple's dickish position on App Store rules is a risk, and they should make changes before they're forced to. This week, their hand was forced, and they had to make changes on someone else's schedule and with someone else's requirements.

It's a shame because, despite all of the issues we have with the company, in my opinion, Apple still makes the very best computers, tablets, phones, watches, and more. I'm writing this on my Mac, and I love this computer. My iPhone is in my pocket, and it's an outstanding piece of consumer technology. These things are amazing, and it's so frustrating to have this anti-competitive App Store thing lingering over all of it.