>They CHOOSE to do this. If there were a free and open market for app stores, competitors would pop up, who would similarly host, distribute, market, and "review" apps. And they would do it for a whole lot less than 30% and 99USD/year.
Would they? There are plenty of storefronts that sell games on Windows, yet Steam is the dominant one and charges, you guessed it, $100 and 30% of gross revenue. Epic charges 12 percent and loses money on every transaction. It might actually cost somewhere between 12 and 30 percent to make it a profitable and sustainable venture.
There is one interesting difference, which is that Steam charges a one-time $100 per game, rather than annually. It's very slightly cheaper in the long run, which is nice if you just want to distribute a completely free game on Steam, or if you're a part-time game dev with low sales.
1. they wouldn't have to fight so hard to keep their not-monopoly
2. the app store would be operating at-cost, with no margin
i think everyone agrees they have a margin, the question is how much. right now i think apple could make a profit with a 10% of revenue, and most likely at 5%. now they've done the hard work of creating an entire market, and invested huge sums to get there, so maybe they deserve a markup on that
but that's the beauty of startups and capitalism. a new product can skip steps, learn from your mistakes, work without your tech debt and bloated organisational dysfunctions, and disrupt your industry. it happens in every industry, and no company is immune. apple will fight to keep things as-is with everything they've got, but capitalism will win.
Would they? There are plenty of storefronts that sell games on Windows, yet Steam is the dominant one and charges, you guessed it, $100 and 30% of gross revenue. Epic charges 12 percent and loses money on every transaction. It might actually cost somewhere between 12 and 30 percent to make it a profitable and sustainable venture.