They're still going to charge app developers releasing on 3rd party app stores, so Apple will still make money through this route. https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/26/24051823/apple-third-party-app-stores-50-cent-fee
What's the source of this?
Many years ago, I was at a sci-fi costume party, and a guy's costume was just a Jaffa Cake stuck to his forehead. He was a Jaffa.
Having worked in a university web team back in the day, these user personal spaces got dropped for various reasons. Teaching staff would push back on increasing password security, so accounts got hacked continuously. People would upload malicious applications through cgi-bins and the like. Maintenance costs skyrocketed. The cost of keeping these going because of these reasons were just not justifiable anymore, and it was much easier to provide them an account on a WYSIWYG system that could be secured, patched and maintained by an external company.
With the rise of online learning portals that included these features as standard, it became less justifiable. Why pay for two products, when one would do.
I made a Qobuz playlist of the albums if anyone is interested.
Enjoy, they're all wild rides.
You know what you can do with your hand cream, jerk-off!
It was all about getting on a good web-ring. I had a few sites across Geocities, Tripod and the like, but getting on a good web-ring brought the best traffic. Don't forget to put a visitor counter on the page, and a cursor trail will impress everyone. This advice brought to you 25 years too late.
I didn't want to turn a corner, anyway.