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You haven't said why the initial model —where you surrender 30% to Apple— is acceptable, when you pay them nothing for an app that lets you buy other things. Th

You haven't said why the initial model —where you surrender 30% to Apple— is acceptable, when you pay them nothing for an app that lets you buy other things. They're both apps with potentially similar overhead costs for Apple. I don't think we're talking about drastically different things when we're comparing the Amazon app, or some client application for SaaS. Apple doesn't force Amazon to use it as a card processor, does it? It seems the only distinguishing feature is that Amazon is massive. You could say that there's a distinguishing digital delivery divide here but Amazon gets out of that too these days.

sudhirj 6y ago
The initial model was ok because Apple was handling promotion and marketing as well for you. There was a time where there weren't that many apps on the App store, so Apple would push and advertise apps after you submitted them. Even today, they do still feature apps, explain them and even make nice artwork about your app. This is all publisher work, and easily worth the money if you really have zero marginal cost. They can make you millions by talking about your app, that's worth a commission.