[fearoffish]

Funny thing about software is it costs money to produce and maintain. Another funny thing, is it runs on hardware which also isn’t free to buy or maintain. At Apple scale, that means for every new app or update, they need to compile it, scan it, pass it off for checks and then distribute it globally. That will be done many many many times a second. On top of that they have to maintain a payment system that I’ve not once seen go down or had a problem with. Then they need to handle fraud, payment refund requests through support etc.

All I’m getting at, is it’s naive to boil what they do for that 30% down to “they automate some software”.

[naikrovek]

If you think it costs 30% of every sale to provide that service, then I disagree with that, strongly.

3%, MAYBE. Maximum.

See my reply to your sibling comment for a more detailed explanation of my perspective, if you wish. Makes no sense to repeat it here.