Does windows deserve 30%? what about your isp? Or your motherboard manufacturer? What about nvidia? Should every single company providing you software or hardware take a cut, or only apple?
Pretty much every middleman or service provider in every industry takes a cut, whether by charging you more than they paid or a fee for their service. For some reason people think software is uniquely exempt from this transaction. Nvidia and your motherboard manufacturer already charged you for the product they provided and you also paid for the fee Dell or Newegg charged on top. Your isp is charging you a fee for uninterrupted service. Apple is charging developers for hosting apps and developing tooling.
Sure, but the cut is a fixed amount based upon the value of the services the middleman is providing. And most importantly, it is not a percentage of the revenue the customer is able to generate by using these services - these two models are polar opposites.
A great example that highlights this absurdity is vehicle ownership - imagine if Tesla announced tomorrow that they are actually a "transportation platform" and started charging Uber drivers a percentage of their revenue, or Mazda found out about the weekend race you did in a Miata and is demanding a cut of the winnings.
Businesses would love perfect price discrimination in every context (because profits!), but is not clear to me how that is a desirable state for humanity.
> A great example that highlights this absurdity is vehicle ownership - imagine if Tesla announced tomorrow that they are actually a "transportation platform" and started charging Uber drivers a percentage of their revenue, or Mazda found out about the weekend race you did in a Miata and is demanding a cut of the winnings.
They could do this. It would just result in people being upset and likely no longer using their products.
I don't think it makes a ton of sense to compare a store or marketplace to hardware though? Every marketplace I know of takes a cut of items purchased through their store. Or they buy their items upfront and then take all the revenue of the sale.
The issue really shouldnt be that a cut is taken, it should be the amount or letting developers create alternative ways to download apps. Having an issue with someone taking a cut of revenue generated for products purchased on their platform just doesnt make a lot of sense.
I pay windows a fee to use their OS. I'm guessing they take a cut of anything sold via microsoft store as well. My ISP gets a fee for its service. My motherboard was paid for. Nvidia card was paid for.
I don't know exactly how every store works but doesnt every digital store, and non digital store, take a cut of what they sell?
I agree with the fact that we should own our own computers but you do own your iphone. You can jailbreak it and do whatever you want with it. You can even sideload apps, like altstore, through an incredible tedious process.
It sucks that Apple doesnt make this easier to do but that is another topic... Right?
We should own our own computers