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For like 95% of apps the $99 yearly developer fee more than covers the storage and distribution. A terabyte of data transfer is about $100 on S3, most apps are

For like 95% of apps the $99 yearly developer fee more than covers the storage and distribution. A terabyte of data transfer is about $100 on S3, most apps are a few MB at most and will never reach that many downloads in a year, even with re-downloads and updates. The fair thing is anything lower than what it is now. Distribution costs have dropped dramatically, and user trust has increased so accepting credit cards on your own really isn't as huge of a deal as it was ten years ago. Visibility is now zero from the App Store as well which was also a benefit back in the early days.

derefr 9y ago
Free apps must, just like paid apps, still get reviewed by human Apple employees on every release, which (I would assume) is a far greater cost than distribution, and might heavily outweigh the $99 charge in the case of complex free apps like Facebook or Chrome.
charlesdm 9y ago
If prices of anything were ever determined by the price of a terabyte of data, you'd be right. However, in this case, they are not. The price of data is wholly irrelevant to this discussion. As an app developer, I can tell you that visibility is not zero. If you understand how the store works, there is still excellent money to be made there. The 30% cut isn't outrageous. You just can't be pushing shovelware.