Comment by seanmcdirmid

5 days ago

Apple’s take is 30%, but they have expenses that have to be covered by that. The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

6 comments

seanmcdirmid

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pornel  5 days ago

If Apple is so bad at this that they have to charge 30%, they should have failed in the free market to a competitor that can do the same or better for 3%. However, Apple has prevented that, not by being better or cheaper, but by implementing DRM that locks users out from having a choice (and the market as a whole ended up being a duopoly with cartel-like pricing).

Whether Apple can be cheaper isn't really the point (they should be, digital services are a very high margin business). It's that they're anti-competitive to the point that the market for paid apps and in-app payments became inefficient (in a financial sense).

Jensson  5 days ago

> The profit if any would be much less than $30bn.

It doesn't cost that much to maintain and run the appstore, it is almost all profits.

  • seanmcdirmid  5 days ago

    You are trying to tell me that credit card processing fees are negligible, software engineers work for free, advertising doesn’t require overhead, etc…

    I guess that kind of thinking that everything is basically free is why alot of startups just fail so easily.