I understand your sentiment, but a lot of that isn’t right.

Early iPhone apps were going for $10-20. So many developers being okay with just data harvesting plus so many devices out there made the $0.99 / free with ads model dominate – people got used to “free” apps from the big guys (Facebook, Google, whoever).

iOS apps are pretty resilient to OS updates. They usually only totally break when huge changes happen (dropping 32-bit support, etc) and those happen once a decade.

Tons of Windows software didn’t survive the 3.1 to 95 transition. A bunch died on 98 to XP, too. In the Apple world, a lot got left behind on the Mac when they went from PowerPC to Intel processors in 2007, or when they dropped 32-bit libraries.

The trouble with appeasement is that you’re eventually pushed to the point where you won’t cave anymore. You say no. And they punish you for it.

And now, all that appeasement has meant nothing. You sold your soul, you didn’t fight back, you did damage to yourself or your reputation or your customers or whatever. But you’re right where you would have been if you didn’t appease at all.

You have an enemy. If you didn’t, they wouldn’t be making you do terrible things. Do you want to tell them no to their face now? Or after they’ve recruited you into their scheme for years?

It’s sunk cost fallacy as international strategy and it’s terrible.