> Again you are comparing the real world with digital. Are companies manufacturing software from sourced resources, excluding people and labour? Is Apple physically distributing software in trucks to stores across the country. No, none of this applies to digital content hosted on digital stores.
So do you think running the app stores don’t have a cost? Is any company not charging a mark up for being a distributor of digital content?
> You would think digital content would be cheaper,
The physical retail markup is much higher.
> Apple sets its own mark up of 30
As does all of its competitors.
> If companies where able to host their own digital stores and sell their own digital products, Apple could not afford to mark up to 30% on sales because no one would buy anything at the inflated prices on their store.
If that’s the case, why do companies that can sell physical goods on their own choose to sell on Amazon? Why don’t music companies sell their own digital downloads since they can be played on iPhones? Why don’t major publishers of books sell their books from their website? You can download a book from the web directly into the Books app and you can sideload on a Kindle?
The answer is simple, Amazon and Apple are where the customers are and there is no friction buying from either one because your payment details are already on file.
Marco Arment (cofounder of Tumbler and now a well known indie developer) said that one overlooked benefit of subscriptions through the App Store is that everyone keeps their payment information up to date with Apple.
From a consumer standpoint, canceling a subscription through the App Store is much easier than for instance going to the NYTimes abs trying to cancel it.