Regardless of what is a 'fair' fee, what happens when the handful of apps that generate the vast majority of revenue move their transactions away from the marketplace?
What is Apple/Google's next move?
30% is reasonable for an app from an unknown dev where the platform might have to eat a large refund after the dev disappears and the app turns out to have been a scam. charging that same rate to netflix for subscription payments is price gouging, plain and simple.
As the article says, apple was making somewhere on the order of $700k per day off Netflix's transaction fees. For doing basically nothing. Netflix is obviously willing to pay more than basic credit card processing fees for the convenience factor of having in-app billing on iOS, so all apple needs to do to keep that business is to be willing to negotiate.
tl;dr Go to http://reportaproblem.apple.com/, sign in and pick the app that you want a refund for. Then fill out the questionnaire.
Innovate. Cannibalize existing products. Surprise us. Unless they want to attract more of the "business" types that will suck them dry until they end up, one day, a long time from now... like Sears.
- adjust the revenue share percentage to match the perceived value (convenience/UX mostly, but there are others such as marketing, chargeback protection, etc...)
- play hard ball by rejecting apps that "don't comply with our seamless guidelines on the user experience"
- make deals on a case by case basis (ie "if your rev is > $X millions, contact us") or have a volume discount on the revenue share percentage
It all boils down to the same "cost vs value" perception, and that isn't uniform across all apps/developers so it's not very surprising that the "one size fits all" is starting to show its limits.
Unless you consider ACloudGuru for instance “large”.
12/88 split for all revenue going through the store.
Maintain annual fee to have a developer account.
Charge a $500 'listing fee' to list your app, with a $100 annual payment per app unless certain revenue tiers are met (app is de-listed if not paid).
Allow for easier refund procedures (like Steam) and reduce the minimum price down to $0.50.
Its a mature platform now, time to go for a higher quality level with fewer, more professional apps.