It’s not a tax, it’s like a rent. They built and run the ecosystem, you don’t have to be part of it if you don’t like it, it’s completely voluntary, unlike a tax.
It’s rent in the sense of rent seeking. You control an asset and let others pay for using it, if they want to. Rent seeking is not a very good thing but it’s a minuscule part of Apple’s business model. I also can’t see how a small developer can find it unfair, 30% for access to the best mobile ecosystem seems a pretty good deal to me, and I’m a mobile developer. I can agree that it seems expensive to Amazon or Spotify though.
I don't see it as tax or rent, but a business partnership with a revenue sharing model. Amazon has a unique deal, Google has a unique deal to bring search in Safari, Microsoft has a unique deal. Apple can't sign unique deals with all developers so this is a fair and scalable way to create business deals using APIs. It isn't perfect, but it works. If it didn't, it wouldn't be so successful.
