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by madars 907 days ago
Easy: offer a discount if purchase is made on an unsupported device, just like how grocery stores offer discounts for food that's about to expire.

I don't think there is a real concern about app store economics collapsing, the app marketplace business is very lucrative. We can see this in related cases: you can avoid certain iOS taxes by purchasing your subscriptions on the web: Twitter Blue is $11 on iOS and $8 on the web. Spotify used to be $12.99 for iOS sign-ups and $9.99 on the web.

Why should users pay full bundled iOS tax that supports security updates, if they are getting none?

2 comments

> Why should users pay full bundled iOS tax that supports security updates,

I don't think I've ever seen someone express the expectation that Apple's App Store fees are for the purpose of supporting iOS development and maintenance. Mostly I've seen and heard the expectation that those fees are connected to running the App Store itself (payment processing, hosting, app review, etc.) and beyond that, vague profiteering. iOS itself isn't a subscription service, and Apple seems quite happy to sell you devices even if you don't spend money in the App Store. So you seem to be stretching a bit by attributing those fees to iOS maintenance and then turning around to say that unsupported iOS versions should get a discount on the fees for any services that still work.

Your purchases carry forward to newer devices, no? If nothing else, people would keep an older device just to make purchases and then install it on their newer iPhone.