Why does Apple make a minority of developers finance the entire App Store? To be clear, I have no objection to Apple having an App Store, and for placing requirements on App Store developers. There's a Mac App Store—sadly, a neglected clone of the iOS App Store, which was itself a clone of the iTunes Music Store—but using the Mac App Store is optional for Mac developers, and many of them opt out of the Mac App Store, choosing to distribute software independently. As an App Store developer myself, I can tell you that the Mac App Store generates a lot less revenue than the iOS App Store. So the question is, given that the Mac App Store is optional for developers and not particularly lucrative for Apple, how does Apple finance the Mac platform?