Google makes a ton of cash on its apps.
They are using the old Kodak business model. Give the OS away, but make up for it through the sale of apps.
That’s true
I forgot about apps from their Google PlayStore but that could be a bonus, 1st take $5 for every phone
Phone manufacturer’s would pay up
Uh, no, they don't:
(Apple) App Store revenue was almost double that of Google Play in Q1 2016
Seeing as how Google has to pay the developers, the money has to go to the developers who sell the apps.
Google's business model isn't Kodak's. Kodak sold the camera's they made inexpensively directly to consumers. They didn't give them away. They also charged license fees to other camera manufacturers for the rights to use the Kodak patents. The idea was to get the consumers locked into your camera tech so they had to buy your film. The Kodak model was adopted by the inkjet and laser printers makers.
Google doesn't do that. Google's business model is more of the free magazine content tabloid model. Provide content to local publishers in exchange for a cut of the advertising, except they're taking ALL of the advertising. . . PLUS they're providing the printing presses AND the paper (which in this instance are interactive and report back how they are being used and also have the added benefit of reporting on the reading habits of the buyers of the printed page to allow targeting of the ads).
“Google makes a ton of cash on its apps. ... Give the OS away, but make up for it through the sale of apps.”
That’s not a “ton of cash”. There are very few non-free Android apps sold at meaningful quantities. Google’s cut is nothing to sneeze at, certainly, but is nowhere near the enormous revenue it gets from other sources. Apple has made a whole lot more from apps than Google, but even that’s in the low $billions, paltry relative to its’ usual revenue. Both companies facilitate creation & sales of apps not so much to make $$$ from the apps, but to give customers a reason to stay within the ecosystem (so Google can gather more info to mine for targeted advertising, and so Apple can sell more hardware).