It's about users, and creating a great experience for them. Developers getting upset about flash not running on the device, apps getting rejected, etc--that's just an unintentional side-effect of putting the user first.
As I understand, there are two Apple bureaucracies in the way: one which collects about a $100/year fee to let you go beneath a superficial level, and another where Apple bureaucrats examine your software before it can be conveniently shared. (Do I misunderstand?) This apparently even holds true with free software.
These bureaucracies make it difficult for interested users to move along the skill spectrum. They seem to enforce a strict separation between developers and users.
What makes it so frustrating, I think, is that most people like the Apple platform and experience. Giving it up and going somewhere else for ideological reasons sounds good until you're resetting your phone by pulling the battery, struggling to get hardware to work, asking why Linux still has no good mixed sound support layer, or other realities of less unified platforms.
We want Steve & his company to agree with us so that we can have our cake and also know that the cake is made according to our ideology.
If you make something well and it's non-trivial, the chances of it getting refused for any substantive reason (porn, stepping on Apple's toes, etc.) are actually pretty small.
I.e., there's small set of things you can't do, but an unlimited set of things you can do.
Of course you don't care about violating my principles. But do you care about violating your own?
It doesn't mean it's a large, non-zero positive value. I think recent developments in mobiles have shown that customers have orders of magnitude more leverage above everyone.
If there are users, the developers will come. Just because there are developers, doesn't guarantee users. This explains everything about Apple and Linux.
Why would you think a web browser connecting to website is a user using the OS of the website? Why would you make that connection?
Why?
Anyways, back on target. Users choose to use Linux all the time. Countless people choose Linux over other OS's for hosting their websites. Even people with little technical knowledge choose Linux over other options out there as their OS of choice.
And then you have Linux on mobile devices. Android isn't doing half bad, last I checked. And Android is based on Linux.
While your original argument is sound, your conclusion about Apple and Linux is off the mark.
3.3.1 is not the only problem - there have been lots of bullshit rejections too.