[jonhohle]

Credit card companies do one thing - process payments. What cut do VOD or music hosting sites take? Bandcamp takes 15%. eBay takes 15% on things they never physically touch. It’s hard finding hard data, but it seems like YouTube, on average charges $15CPM and pays $5CPM to the highest paid YouTubers. What is the value of download hosting and store platform?

[bentice]

If the app is free they still have to maintain the app store. I have a free app apple checks it. Running an app store is part of the cost of the phone. No one would buy the phone if they couldn't download apps.

If they must charge 20% why don't they also let apps take credit cards? 20% is for the payment, its a tax. Why should Spotify have to pay 20% and Apple music effectively doesn't.

[serial_dev]

Let's figure it out?

Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us. Currently, we need to trust these quasi-monopolies that there is no way they can make it cheaper (and for some strange reason still, they don't want to open things up).

[aembleton]

> Let's allow anyone to do in-app purchases, and app stores, then the market would tell us.

Whats stopping that now on Android? I have a second app store on my phone.