In 1984, Apple came up with this ad to promote its new Macintosh, which sought to break the market share that IBM had at that time. Drawing from the authoritarian world portrayed in 1984, it expressed a strong message that Apple was going to take on "Big Brother" IBM.
Fast forward to 2020, and Apple now has a significant share of the IT market with its various products and software for these products available through its App Store. So when it removed the popular game Fortnite from its App Store because the developers offered a way to bypass the 30% fee charged for using the platform, the developer of Fortnite hit back at this move with its parody of the same ad. Only this time, Big Brother is not IBM but Apple.
I don't use Apple products, but I do think that it is only fair for Apple to charge developers a certain fee for distributing products on its App Store, if the developers are making money from those software. However, it is the amount charged that can be an issue for debate. How much is fair, and how much becomes overboard? For example, PayPal charges a small fee for providing its payment platform. This does reduce my income from translation work when payments are made via PayPal. But there are few alternative platforms, and the fee charged is small enough to still be acceptable. For example, if PayPal were to charge a 30% fee for transactions, I don't think people will be using PayPal anymore.
How much is too much? I think the providers of online platforms deserved to be paid for the service they offer. And it must remain profitable but it cannot become exploitative. A 1% fee is a token sum that would be great for users but may not be profitable to providers. A 5% fee sounds like the normal rate. If the platform offers a unique service, people may even be willing to pay up to a 10% fee. Anything beyond that would be highly subjective. We all want to make profits, but making profits by exploiting the weak is akin to a form of modern slavery.
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