There's a somewhat fair way of adjudicating this discussion, where the truth is obviously neither "highway robbery" nor "best deal ever", and that's the Mac App

There's a somewhat fair way of adjudicating this discussion, where the truth is obviously neither "highway robbery" nor "best deal ever", and that's the Mac App store. Mac developers are free to choose distribution via the App store, or to roll their own and not pay a cent to Apple. I don't have any numbers (and I'd guess very few people do), but I'd guess that the majority of developers is still in the App store, even though there were a few high-profile defections. OTOH, the Mac app store may be <50% in total revenue because the really expensive stuff is usually distributed independently (Adobe, for example, is big enough not to need the platform). So right now I'd say most iOS developers are probably still getting a positive return on investment. Although that doesn't mean that it's a completely fair price–Apple is probably getting the lion's share of the App Store's value.