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Comment by fastball | Hacker News Reader

I think you're misunderstanding the GP. They're talking about services provided entirely by other people, e.g. buying ebooks from Amazon. In that light, here are the responses to your bullets:

- the hardware I already paid for

- this should be included in the price of the hardware (and certainly is in the case of Apple)

- I don't use the Books app, I use the Amazon Kindle app

- I never listened to a podcast on my iPod

- I don't use the Podcasts app, I use the Spotify app

So in the case of Amazon/Spotify, what value is Apple delivering beyond paying for download bandwidth in order for me to download the app (which is like, $0.000001 of bw costs)?

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> - I don't use the Books app, I use the Amazon Kindle app

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing offers 2 options: 35% royalty and 70% royalty.

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200644210

You can choose between two royalty options for each of your eBooks: the 35% royalty option and the 70% royalty option.

-If you select the 35% royalty option, your royalty will be 35% of your list price without VAT for each unit sold.

-If you select the 70% royalty option, your royalty will be 70% of your list price without VAT, less delivery costs (average delivery costs are $0.06 per unit sold, and vary by file size), for each eligible book sold to customers in the 70% territories, and 35% of the list price without VAT for each unit sold to customers residing outside the 70% territories.

Yep, those are numbers. We can agree that none of that money should be owed to Apple, right?

Ok, now imagine Amazon only allowed you to list a book if it was self-published via KDP.

> this should be included in the price of the hardware

But it isn’t. One of the reasons Apple continues to support old hardware is they collect revenue from the App Store on older devices.

The platform ecosystem is more than just device hardware + server hardware + bandwidth.

Alt reason why "Apple continues to support old hardware": If some people found out that they NEED to get a new phone every 2 years that costs $1,000, then they might look to another cell phone manufacturer.

I'm sure the store is a factor though!

Even granting that not everyone uses every app, Apple made and continues to maintain, improve, update, and support the thriving ecosystem (including many free apps) in which Amazon and Spotify can find the best audience.

Including, with help from fees charged to developers and the 30% revenue cut, funding development of all the tools and platforms that make it all possible.

Amazon and Spotify (and their customers) would not do as well without this ecosystem and its tools, devices, and platforms.

I think the value of the ecosystem including all the aspects mentioned is huge. Device sales alone would not ever come close to paying for it all, if you want devices to be in reach of normal people and you don’t want to build your business off of intrusive personalized advertising.

This. If 'the algorithm' decides not to promote your app, you should have to option to pay less. Unfortunately, there has yet to be good business incentives for a change like this. Hence it feels very much like a winner take all market.

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