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Wasn't Palm taking a 80% cut in their glory days? (My google skills fail me) I heard developers saying that 30% was a great deal at the time.

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No. Virtually all PalmOS software sales were either direct via dev’s web site, or via palmgear.com, which was a sort of app store for its time. They were not affiliated with Palm the company or its entities. Absolutely no platform DRM whatsoever, and all apps were basically “side loaded” onto devices, regardless of origin.

I think it was Handango that set the 30% expectation. They were the first with such a high cut I think, and was among the first app sites for most of the PDAs of the time.

30% was pretty offensive after years of shareware.

But then apps cost pennies compared to the software we were used to. Office cost many hundreds of dollars and I regularly paid £400+ for PC programs that did just one thing. £350 for Photoshop was a steal.

But then apps came along costing a small handful of dollars. They also did things you could not do on your PC due to the connectivity, the camera and the sensors. Everything changed when it came to price expectations.

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