I'm curious how this affects the overall economy, not just the studios. What would your friend have spent that money on otherwise (obviously a Mega account was a lot cheaper)? Who is now $100 poorer because iTunes+studios are $100 richer?
megaupload owners - fast cars, hookers and blow
studios - fast cars, hookers and blow
actors - fast cars, hookers and blow
apple - wages for workers in china.
I guess the lesser evil is the studios...at least they are employing local hookers!
Via morningstar.com, in 2010 Apple had 65,225,000,000 in revenue.
Total operating expenses for 2010 were $7,299,000,000, just 11.2% of revenue.
Executive compensation was $148,424,291. That is 2/10ths of 1% of revenue. That is just for the the top five execs and Jobs only took $1 in compensation. Still I don't think it is accurate to say that a 'significant' cut of revenue goes to 'the executives'.