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by mikeash 3962 days ago
Which is great if you're one of the top apps and can get Apple's attention, but useless for 99.9% of developers.

I would also say that by far the main reason for the App Store's popularity is simply that it is the only channel for third-party apps on a massively popular platform. Apple could do nothing beyond making it available as an icon on the home screen and it would still be enormously popular.
1 comments
icebraining 3962 days ago
on a massively popular platform

And that's part of what you're paying for.

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mikeash 3962 days ago
If you want to say that you're paying for access, that Apple can charge what they like, and that 30% is good value for the money for that access, fine. I disagree, but I respect that argument.

But the person above was comparing Apple's 30% to retail's 50%, which is a bad comparison because retail's cut is largely based on the actual costs of selling.

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