Google Music is 30% more expensive when purchased via iOS.
If that seems insane, it's because it is.
Averaging it to 30% and rounding doesn't seem too crazy.
"so"
But that doesn't necessarily follow, unless it actually is a 42% higher number than a known reference number for the price of the same subscription service and period on another platform.
In North America you can make up to 5% back on purchases by using credit card. This is because the store pays a fee. I don't see why this shouldn't be paid by the consumer. This is effectively overcharging cash customers for the availability of a service that they don't use.
I think the long term effects would be better in both cases if the fee was visible like Google Music is doing.
That's not the insane part.
> This is because the store pays a fee
Note: It's not 30%
Cash isn't free for stores to handle either. They need to pay employees to count up the cash at closing time, put it in the safe, and periodically distribute cash to registers so they don't run out of change. Additionally, stores typically contract with security companies to pickup and deliver cash to/from the store and the bank.
Maybe the costs from above are not identical to the fees for credit card transactions, but they may be close enough that it's not worth it for a store to charge different prices and incur the overhead from that. Some stores do however offer discounts for using cash. The examples I can think of off the top of my head are family-run Chinese take-out restaurants. These tend to have family members counting and handling cash, so they may have less overhead, or they may be too small to warrant hiring a security company to make cash pickups.
But my point is if that Apple claims that the security and convince is worth 30% we should let the market decide. This is to an extent what Google Music is doing and I think it would be healthy if more companies did this.
There are analogies to be drawn with game consoles, but there are some key differences: game consoles are not general purpose computing devices necessary for everyday life; users can own multiple consoles at once; there are more than two competitors; and the cost of switching is relatively low.
unless something has changed recently, the retailer's agreements with Visa and Mastercard prohibits them from charging extra for credit card payments.