The risk factor said it first. Compare two of Apple's annual reports. The 2022 Form 10-K could still describe the App Store by emphasizing that 'for the vast majority of applications, developers keep all of the revenue they generate on the App Store.' Source: Apple Inc. Form 10-K (FY2022), via EdgarBeast, the SEC filing data API & evidence index.
That is a confident, offensive framing — a company telling its own story on its own terms, leading with the statistic most favorable to it. The implicit message: regulation is misguided because most developers already pay nothing.
By the 2025 Form 10-K the lead has changed. The filing references an investigation into 'whether the Company's new contractual requirements for third-party app developers and app marketplaces' satisfy regulators. Source: Apple Inc. Form 10-K (FY2025). The subject is no longer how generous the terms are; it is whether the terms are lawful.
In between, the 2024 10-K documented the anti-steering battle — restrictions on 'how developers may communicate and promote offers to end users.' Read the three filings in sequence and you watch the App Store's narrative descend one rung per year: from 'most pay nothing,' to 'we limit steering,' to 'our compliance terms are under investigation.'
For the product, narrative control is not cosmetic. The App Store's value rests partly on the perception that it is a curated, fair marketplace. Each year the filing's framing moves further from that perception and closer to the language of a regulated gatekeeper defending its rulebook. The store still works the same way; the story Apple can tell about it has narrowed.
Fees are revenue; revenue is the fight. The most telling thing about reading the 10-Ks side by side is what disappeared: the 2025 filing no longer leads with the 'developers keep all the revenue' line at all. When a company stops opening with its best statistic, the statistic has stopped winning the argument.