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by lancesells 2102 days ago
It's not just the ability to sell goods on iOS. It's the reviewing of the app, the upgrades, any App Store curation, any developer support, the iOS itself, etc. That said, I think 30% is too high as an industry standard for software.

The one thing I think that might be the most costly for Apple are all the free apps on the App Store. I know you need to pay $99 a year but as they are free Apple sees nothing in return from those apps.

1 comments

But Apple does get a value out of free apps. They make the iPhone a more attractive platform for end-users.

How many people do you think would buy an iPhone if you couldn’t use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or some of the other really big free apps? They NEED those apps.

Apple could easily afford to pay for all the costs of the App Store from purchases of hardware. The $99 is just gravy.

The argument that they NEED the 30% to make up for the “freeloaders” that don’t charge for apps (as Apple seems to suggest) is ridiculous.

Apple gets a tremendous value out of the entire app ecosystem, i’d be willing to bet it’s quite a bit more than 30% they end up collecting.