I didn't mean 'customers' in a legal sense though. And yes I understand that we're in a different category from paying people in the app store. What I simply wished to say was that as a recipient of the annual $99, apple is technically obliged to provide us the services we need to create apps. Such as the certificates, forums, and such. Those things weren't present in the past week. I could be forgiven for being a little disappointed since I paid for these services but couldn't access them.
I expect the relationship with apple to be mutual. I don't believe they don't need us. In fact, they need us just as much as we need them. We create apps that sell their products. Without apps the Iphones and Ipads would not sell as much.
I didn't mean to criticize apple, they had a tough week. But this whole hacking incident has strained their relationship with developers. Being able to express how it affected you is a good thing as it would help us move on and go back to normal programming.