Web Push is fantastic for developing useful applications without paying the apple tax, which necessarily results in the garbage-tier free apps dominating the App Store today (Want to do anything at all? Watch an ad every minute. Want functionality that's not the absolute bare minimum? Pay $5/month forever.)
When I was deep in the C# ecosystem, I personally paid for my own JetBrain license.
Do you also not pay someone to host your web apps?
It is $500+ (used) computer also.
Cannot use your old PC do develop iOS apps.
$99 may be nothing for most HN users, but for 3rd world developer...
This means there is a glut of older models in second hand market or passed down to kids, cousins, and family friends.
The problem with the 99 dollars is that it’s payable yearly. Yes someone might sponsor you once and give you enough for a single year but they won’t do it ever year. You have to make enough yourself and that’s a tall order of business if you are a student.
Thus no one learns iOS development first.
But I totally get you, Apple is but one company and they've completely bungled reasonable prices in many countries, for example India.
Do you feel the same way about console makers?
"I'm not paying for the privilege of..."
Edit: A continuation of the above but paraphrased from my previous comment: ...being allowed to step over this ridiculous barrier to implement these fixes myself on my own device.
After a couple of years I decided to stop paying $99 a year for hosting a little 5MB app.
My point was not about distributing the app but about paying $99 every year to distribute a free app using the official app store.
You: "but you can use Y"
Me: "I know, just saying X has this problem"
You: "But you can use Y. Don't complain about X."