“The two things that were scarring to Apple were the near bankruptcy. They're still thinking of themselves as underdogs who want to assert at least 51% of the power over developers — they've lost sight of the fact that they've actually got like 95% of the power.”

Apple's tight platform control traces directly to near-bankruptcy in the '90s

The three executives who control Apple's App Store relationships — Jaws, Schiller, and Eddie Q — all joined Apple in the late 1980s and lived through the company's near-collapse when developer leverage almost pulled the platform under. That existential scare became institutional memory: never let third parties hold majority power again. Understanding this history is essential context for any developer trying to read Apple's behaviour.