Apple doing their best to keep "small developers" small, since the catch is that in the following year, because those "small" devs exceeded the $1 million mark even temporary, just once, will be disqualified from the Small Business Program for the entirety of the next calendar year. They will pay the standard 30% commission on all earnings from the very first dollar.

The emergence of this SBP was due to pressure from looming anti-trust measures anyway, which Apple would have never willingly conceded without it.