Perhaps their plan was to, once successful, create a Minitel AppStore and allow smaller developers ...
They set the whole thing up to control it and charge extraorbitant fees for it both to the user and to anyone publishing on it. Minitel as well as WAP. Apple's 30% is peanuts compared to the fees I'm talking about - I mean contracts with minimums in millions.
Good thing Apple kicked their sand castle down. People don't give them enough credit for that.