Apple seem to view external developers as a kind of infestation. The systems and processes they subject them to seem designed to actively discourage them.
Because the alternatives aren’t preferable. The indies who have been exclusively using and developing for Apple platforms for years know that Windows and Linux aren’t better¹, just a different set of annoying trade offs. Apple platforms aren’t perfect, but they are the least bad option in that context. They also used to be better in many regards, which makes the situation frustrating due to the wasted potential.
¹ At a personal preference level. There’s no judgement either way, you do you and use whatever you like best.
For Apple to correct course, they should ditch the ads and focus on superpowering MacOS and iOS. Right now it's hard for me to trust that Apple is giving me the best of all worlds.
I gave up on mine personally after the app installs were impossible due to some modal error in loops.
I'm not sure how they managed to do it but they are very strong on the marketing side, I'll admit that.
They used to (or still do?) have coding courses for kids at Apple stores, they have free learn to code resources (https://developer.apple.com/learn/), probably some more programs I'm not familiar with.
I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.
Sincerely yours, Groucho Marx.