For what it is worth, Youtube's tax is around 70%, but people get to see non-monetized videos for free. Similarly, the Google Play Store lets people download software at no cost when no price has been attached to it by the developer, despite having to do the work of distributing it.
Also, the OS developer acting as a gatekeeper is necessary to prevent malware from getting onto devices. Without that, you have Windows where black hats trick the average user into installing malware constantly.
Almost everything you list is actually a positive thing, although I would be wasting my time to explain it to people who should take the time they put into complaining into developing their own competing platforms that align with their ideals. Please do put your energy into making a competing platform. We need more choices at the operating system level, and nothing people hope these lawsuits would accomplish would give us that.
YouTube's tax is not comparable to the Play Store or the App Store because other identical services exist. Pretty much anyone immediately familiar with Google or Apple's infrastructure would laugh that off - you cannot replace the App Store in the same way. Unlike YouTube and Vimeo/Dailymotion, nobody is competing with the App Store to adjust it's taxation.
If Windows and MacOS imposed the same limitations, entire classes of software would stop getting distributed. Games would no longer be profitable enough to ship or diverse enough to compete in terms of profits. Professional software/plugin developers like Pro Tools, Panic! and U-He would lose the software margins they enjoy today and potentially stop supporting new OS releases. It happened already on MacOS after the depreciation of 32-bit apps and OpenGL.
> the OS developer acting as a gatekeeper is necessary to prevent malware from getting onto devices
You say that, but then viruses like Pegasus show up using nothing more than first-party Apple services. It's a bogus fearmongering tactic that cannot be used to justify not giving people a choice. User exploitation will exist as long as the user has enough power to act against their own interests. You'd have to remove the phone functionality to make a safe phone.
> Almost everything you list is actually a positive thing
> nothing people hope these lawsuits would accomplish would give us that.
Interesting, you sound incredibly desperate to dismiss the idea that legislation could fix this problem despite a lack of evidence. Wanna expand on that?
Also, the OS developer acting as a gatekeeper is necessary to prevent malware from getting onto devices. Without that, you have Windows where black hats trick the average user into installing malware constantly.
Almost everything you list is actually a positive thing, although I would be wasting my time to explain it to people who should take the time they put into complaining into developing their own competing platforms that align with their ideals. Please do put your energy into making a competing platform. We need more choices at the operating system level, and nothing people hope these lawsuits would accomplish would give us that.