When you sell boxed software in a retail store, you're selling using the wholesale model: it has a retail price of $99 but you're selling it to them -- or more

When you sell boxed software in a retail store, you're selling using the wholesale model: it has a retail price of $99 but you're selling it to them -- or more likely your distributor -- for about 40–50% of that price. The distributor takes another 10%, and the retail store gets the difference between that and the retail price they choose to sell it at. This is very distinct from the "agency" model that the App Store uses. Well: actually, when you sell boxed software in a retail store in 2020, you sell nothing because nobody does that and this is a super stupid comparison for Apple to keep making. The Mac App Store isn't competing with Target and the ghost of CompUSA, it's competing with other online store systems like Paddle, which takes 50¢ + 5%. The iOS App Store is competing with... nothing, in practice, because it's literally the only way to get applications onto your iOS device. Which is kind of what's getting everyone to argue about this, right?