It was obvious to me that Apple doesn't care about developers the moment I learned that they charge a $99 per year fee to open a developer account.
I refuse to pay a company so that I can contribute value to their ecosystem.
I refuse to pay a company so that I can contribute value to their ecosystem.
The way that Apple cares for developers in aggregate is by keeping the ecosystem vibrant. This means giving developers what they need, but not necessarily what they want. It means that when it comes down to what developers want vs. what users (like the author's mom) need, users win.
$99/year is nothing in terms of development costs, but even that token amount will generally keep out the Apple fanboys who just want to download iOS developer releases and should not be let into the developer party.