[JoeAltmaier]

Why does Apple need revenue from Basecamp (or any content provider)? They don't have any cost whatsoever associated with this content deliver. You already paid for the phone, $$$. The network isn't theirs; Apple takes zero part in the content delivery. Apple provides no content; that's all Basecamp.

This is just Apple noticing money being changed hands, and inserting themselves into the process so they can extract a cut. Get their beak wet, as it were. Not for value received, because there is clearly no value add here.

And the hoops they jump thru to make sure they get their cut! Locking down the phone; a walled-garden marketplace (you can't go anyplace else); the threat of revoking the app from a customer phone(!) if you don't toe the line.

[selykg]

Apple does have cost.

Specifically in the case of Hey:

* Bandwidth to deliver the app to each user that downloads it

* App Store Review requires human beings, so there's paying those people

* There's also generally maintenance of the App Store servers, backend software, etc.

In the past, I'm sure Basecamp (the app) was featured somewhere on the App Store and thus got featured and brought more eyeballs to the app. These features are done by actual people and there's a cost there.

Any store has a cost. Lets say Basecamp were to be able to side load. Now they'd have:

* Bandwidth for delivery of the app for each download

* Cost to maintain their servers

* They'd have to maintain whatever delivery system they had to write in order to provide the same features of the App Store

* They'd have more support costs as well because can the average person understand side loading? What happens when that goes wonky? Now it's on their support team to handle that business too.

Apple provides a lot of value there.

Edit: Jesus... I hate the formatting options on this site..

[JoeAltmaier]

The store already takes a cut, to pay for the store. All that is covered. Like every other app.

So, the 'enforcers' have to be paid? ( the reviewers that keep any money from slipping thru Apples' fingers )? That's the whole story? They are already paid for by the store cut as well (like every other app).

[jw1224]

> Why does Apple need revenue from Basecamp (or any content provider)? They don't have any cost whatsoever associated with this content deliver

I see it partly as a response to the fact that the industry is moving from one-time purchases to subscription-billing. Apple were always able to make their cut from the one-off sale of a $34.99 premium application. Now that the app is available for a $2.99/month subscription from the developer, Apple have to recover the lost caused by the shift to subscription models somehow.

And they certainly do have costs associated with content delivery. There's the trivial costs (bandwidth, hosting, etc.), and the larger overheads associated with R&D, developer review, continually fighting security risks, and so on.

[JoeAltmaier]

Apple doesn't have to recover it, as a cost to something they don't have any part in.

They could take a cut of housing sales too, for all the sense that makes. I can see them in front of congress now: "But Apple isn't making the billions we once did! We neeeeed this money!"

Apple sells $25 phones for $1000. That's their business. Trying to make their business, taking a cut of other people's business, is egregious.