Incidentally, the article is factually wrong about the percentages for many in App purchases, there is a sliding scale for such prices. Subscriptions can be as low as 10%, and some are as high has 30% due to the fact that some developers deliberately give their apps away free, then charge for full functionality only after the fact trying to avoid paying for use of the Apple App Store’s reasonable marketing of their goods and services.
Before Apple created the App Store, typical mark ups for software sales to get a software title to the end user were between 50% to 75% of the retail selling price. 30% is extremely reasonable where the publisher/programmer keeps 70% of his selling price. That was unheard of before Apple created it. So quit all the damn complaining about YOU keeping the lion’s share of getting your products to market! The company that facilitates you being able to do that IS entitled for a fair recompense for doing that for you. Would you rather go back to doing it the old way??? You keep 25% to 50%, if you are lucky, and paying for ALL advertising, packaging, and money handling yourself OUT of your end???
[Before Apple created the App Store, typical mark ups for software sales to get a software title to the end user were between 50% to 75% of the retail selling price. 30% is extremely reasonable where the publisher/programmer keeps 70% of his selling price. That was unheard of before Apple created it. So quit all the damn complaining about YOU keeping the lion’s share of getting your products to market! The company that facilitates you being able to do that IS entitled for a fair recompense for doing that for you. Would you rather go back to doing it the old way??? You keep 25% to 50%, if you are lucky, and paying for ALL advertising, packaging, and money handling yourself OUT of your end???]
Tying sales have always had a bad odor about them. Democrats have put up with Apple because it’s a ideological ally, and Republicans have refused to intervene because of an abiding distaste for antitrust measures. Increasingly, Democrats think Apple isn’t far left enough, and Republicans think Apple is too far left. So you have a real odd couple in terms of political alliances, but the trend is towards greater antitrust enforcement. We’ll see if Apple manages to buy them off. But rhetorically, at least, the trend is towards kiboshing these tying arrangements.