They don't give it away; they subsidize it with app sales. Take those app sales away, and the revenue to pay for the service doesn't exist.
They don't subsidize it with the sales of the most popular apps but off of unethical
microtransactions in games.
They don't make every developer pay a fair percentage of revenue (ex: streaming apps pay nothing) and they allow physical goods purchased to pay nothing even when those apps have just as much burden on the system as do digital goods apps.
Furthermore, Apple doesn't charge the same app the same fees based on the new or old agreement, instead just by accepting the old agreement an App that today pays nothing has to pay something.
So lets look at two categories,
Category DMA: Apps that choose to accept the new terms and release apps both inside and outside the App Store.
Category Apl: Apps that are only on the old terms and are exclusive to the App Store.
Streaming App
DMA: 0.5 per download to apple
APL: 0.00 to Apple
IAP or Up front purchases:
DMA: 20% + 0.5 per download to apple
APL: 30%
You can go to
Apple's calculator and just look at how quickly the new fee structure outpaces the old one.
The only way you can pay less is if you have a very high per user revenue. If you have low per user revenue then the old system costs less. And that is steering and clearly against the rules.
Ex:
0.50 per user per year on 10,000,000 users:
DMA: $451,000 per month (more than the 416,000/month that the app even makes!!)
APL: $115,000 per month
If your app is mostly free with a few paid users the new terms are a non-starter.