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Why? Is it wrong to sell a phone at low cost and charge more for apps? Video game consoles sometimes are sold at a loss in order to make money from games. It's
by Buge 8y ago
Why? Is it wrong to sell a phone at low cost and charge more for apps? Video game consoles sometimes are sold at a loss in order to make money from games.
It's similar to Fortnite's model: sell the game at a low cost (free actually), and then make money from inessential addons (skins).
- jjeaff 8y agoIf that were the case, no, nothing wrong... But apple is making a huge markup on their $1200 phones. They aren't making up a loss with their app store. They're just piling on the cash.
- Buge 8y agoWould it be wrong of apple to make the app store fee 5% and then increase the phone price whatever percent is necessary to make up that loss? Would that be considered piling on the cash?
- jjeaff 8y agoAt least then, buyers get a more realistic view of total cost of ownership up front, rather than hiding the rest of the profits in the pricing of other people's apps.
- earenndil 8y agoIt's fine for a company to sell hardware/os at a loss and recoup the costs with apps, if they predict that they'll make more money that way. However, it's not reasonable for them to, say, refuse me service on the os because all I bought was a hardware+os, not any apps. Nor is it reasonable for them to make me, an app-maker, bear the brunt of the os, since I have nothing to do with the os, just the app store.
- Buge 8y agoIf I buy a smart fridge, even though it has a computer in it, I don't expect to be able to install arbitrary software on it in a supported manner. Apple doesn't advertise as a computing platform for everything, they advertise as having a whitelist of apps, and that's what they provide. I don't want a phone with a whitelist, so I don't buy iOS phones. But some people do want that type of product, and do buy them. You do have something to do with the os. Your app is running on the os.