The Mac App Store came after there was a thriving ecosystem for Mac apps online/organically and without a middle man, and it provided close to zero value for developers on top of that. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison.
Perhaps the iOS and Android app stores are also middle men that provide close to zero value but forced themselves onto mobile phones.
Not so much for the rest of the world, though.
As a thought experiment: how many companies would leave the official iOS App Store if offered a choice tomorrow? Epic Im sure... but the experience on Android suggests to me not that many. As with Android, I think a lot will still want a presence on the default/"official" store regardless of the 30 percent take. Don't forget Apple have also done the hard part of getting a customer to enter their CC number to their iCloud account for their store, removing an enormous amount of friction in the sales process too.
- every app has their own licensing system
- I have to keep track of emails, license key files, logins and other bullshit manually instead of having it synchronized automatically at application install. Not to mention I have a boatload of shop accounts that have collected my payment and other personal data (e.g. postal address) and whom I have to trust now that they keep their data secure enough to not have it stolen.
- for subscription stuff, I have to update payment details for an awful lot of individual shops instead of having one single place
- refund policies vary wildly, as is tax compliance for foreign companies
I agree that Apple and Google must be reined in - 30% cut are absurd rip-offs, and the fact that stores can censor legal content (e.g. anything marijuana/tobacco/drug related or adult content) is troubling - but the central store model does have advantages.
At the same time, MAS is not suitable for many business customers. Eg. some companies buy software exclusively through resellers -- not possible on the Mac App Store. So you need to sell licenses outside the store as well, at which point you may ask yourself: Why bother with the app store?
Suppose you could buy iOS apps from Google Play and vice versa, and also buy both kinds of apps from Amazon, Microsoft and Epic. They still take care of all the payments and licensing bullshit, but now the developer gets to choose how to distribute their app, so the competition drives down fees.
And then once all the stores are charging low fees because otherwise nobody would use them, developers tend to put their apps in all the main stores and the user can choose the stores(s) they prefer to buy through.