This is absolutely true. Both companies play the game of selling customer acquisition. But we seem to be generally more okay with middlemen squeezing a two sided market. Sometimes. If it’s DoorDash or Amazon then public opinion seems to go the other way.
But regardless it’s not Facebook’s value prop to business that people have an issue with but ya know, how they actually deliver it.
No, devs don't buy customers from apple. Customers buy apps, and Apple takes a commission. No money flows from Developer to Apple (apart from to 100$ annual fee if you want to be anal about it).
No they buy access to customers. You can't sell to Apple's customer base unless you give them 30% of gross. The world where Apple charges that 30% commission to the devs after the sale or collects it from the customer during the sale is irrelevant. We fork over a lot of money to Apple for the privilege of selling to their customers.
Well, you can't sell peaches to Walmart customers without Walmart taking a cut either. But we don't say the peach growers are buying customers from Walmart, do we?
I think that nowadays most profitable software is cross-platform and is also available on other platforms, thus their developers see access to the iOS market as added value rather than their primary customer acquisition channel.
But regardless it’s not Facebook’s value prop to business that people have an issue with but ya know, how they actually deliver it.