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The steam this is really funny when you realize they were the first to popularize the idea of an App Store and being a middleman.

Previously there were many "stores" but they only listed apps and left it up to the developer to distribute and handled the payment system.

There were separate payment providers that took a cut but nothing approaching 30%, it was often a flat fee plus 2-3% to cover the credit card processing cost.

Steam created the app industry and somehow Apple takes all the heat.

The only thing Apple added was an option to charge as little as $1. The fee on those independent providers was $1+ by itself.