If we were having this conversation in the late 1800s I'm pretty sure that you would be arguing to me right now that the trans-continental railroad provides "tremendous value" to shippers.

It's become an increasingly common argument in discussions about Apple to phrase their value as one of "distribution", or sometimes less subtly as "access." But no one would ever credibly argue that the actual physical distribution costs, hosting, and bandwidth of the Patreon app is more valuable than the entire platform itself. That would be absurd. Instead, what people actually argue is that access to Apple users is the value that Apple quote-unquote "creates"[0].

I think a lot of people look at this and see it for what it is: rent seeking. But it's a marvel of the modern tech landscape that we've trained so many people to not only accept that they are the product for the platforms they use, but taught them to be proud of being a product. We've gotten people to come around to the idea that companies have done such a good job turning them into a product that the companies now somehow deserve some kind of special reward for doing so.

Excessive use of customers as bargaining chips inevitably creates bad incentives for companies, which become increasingly defensive of their "assets" and increasingly more and more hostile to consumer choice and freedom to move from ecosystem to ecosystem. These negative effects play out again and again in multiple industries both inside and outside of tech, to the detriment of both consumers and the overall markets. But when tech companies come up (whether we're talking about Apple, or Steam, or Nintendo, or whatever) -- for some weird reason people suddenly become very defensive about the rights of companies to treat them like cattle.

TLDR, no, access to iPhone users is not Apple providing value to app developers. It's just rent seeking.

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[0]: As if iPhone users would somehow stop using smartphones now if the iPhone went away.

John D. Rockefeller argued against Standard Oil being broke up on the grounds that it only was so big because it is just that efficient and innovative.

It also kept the price of kerosene low for the consumer.

If it was broke up it would also hurt the economy overall. They also argued it wasn't really a monopoly and they have other competition lol.

Tech companies are such a brilliant monopoly they get the consumer to mindlessly puppet Rockefeller's exact points for them.