The 3rd parties are not getting anything out of it. You literally pay for access to a tech stack that has nothing better than you would be able to do with USB.
I mean the other side of connection was USB so it was a necessity anyway.
If at least they upgraded the speed over the years, but nope stuck at USB 2.
For a hardware project I looked briefly at the MFi terms and they just don't make any sense. This is why any good lightning cable was always more expensive (at least before you get some from China with contraband auth chips)
Lightning is a major cash crab from Apple and revealed their actual playbook. Microsoft passed as a very bad players in the 90's but Apple is even worse.
The only people not accepting that are deranged fans.
