[antibuddy]

Apple does just the distribution. The promotion is still on the developer and you may not even promote your own services in your own app. It is also save to say that a lot of developers would like to do the selling themselves. Apple is not supposed to do the distribution for free, but 30% is really a lot, especially when they do unwanted stuff for you (the payment).

Also the App Store really is the only way to get apps on an iOS-device, so the user has no real choice anyway.

[reaperducer]

The promotion is still on the developer

Apple does plenty of app promotion, from promotions inside its own store to multi-million dollar television campaigns showcasing all the cool apps that are available inside the App Store.

[cgriswald]

Is it really promotion if you pay the same 30% cut as your competitor, but their app ends up on national TV and yours doesn't?

[srtjstjsj]

People are confused because promotion is a separate service that Apple charges separately from publishing.