[pjc50]

This is true, and it's also why apps hardly existed in those days. But really it just shows that the market has moved from having the mobile companies as rent-takers to Apple as a slightly more generous rent-taker. Neither the 70% nor 30% is really the product of a market process.

The counter-argument is of course the PC era, where you could sell stuff and give 0% to the manufacturer and OS vendor.