> While selling less devices than their biggest competitor
That doesn’t matter that much (when taking about app developers) compared to how much money they are spending. A single iPhone user in the US and other rich countries is worth a dozen of Android users in India/African countries etc.
Also even if not literally a monopoly they can effectively behave like a monopoly and abuse their position because no tech company targeting consumers can afford to not have an iOS app.
> What? Iphones have been around for more than a decade, it's well known among customers how they work and there are plenty of options from other manufacturers.
Not what I meant and not how it works. I’m using an iPhone in-spite of their abusive practices and restrictions because their other features/advantages compared to Android outweigh that in my case. It’s basically a shit sandwich…
> why Apple users are so much more willing to spend money on software than users of other platforms
Because they have more money?
> How much money can an independent or boutique developer earn from Linux or Windows users, compared to Apple users?
Yes, that exactly what I’m saying. Apple won (clearly because of the merits of their products) and now they can squeeze developers and consumers to a very high degree without any negative consequences. That’s how monopolies (of course it’s scale, Apple is not literally a monopoly, for that matter neither was Standard Oil back in 1906, they had a comparable market share to Apple these days) work regardless of how exactly they became one, they get to keep all the market surplus that would go to consumers in a more competitive market.