Ask HN: Apple 30% tax a sign of desperation?

If anything it's a sign of overconfidence. They almost all their money through hardware, and the App store/iTunes store is a very small part of their revenue.

In it's first year of sales, the iPad would already be a Fortune 500 company.

Apple has no problem making money off their hardware.

When you say "Amazon", I take it you mean "Apple"? Unless that's a development I've missed.

It is a freudian slip, since Amazon takes %30-%80 of the money. Apple's flat %30 is cheap compared to the Amazon Android Store, and Apple lets you set the prices (whereas Amazon controls the pricing, so they could sell your app for %90 off to promote their store.)