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Comment by rahkiin | Hacker News Reader

So : make a free app. Ask people to buy the non-free version on a website. Apple gets 0. No revenue at all for providing stable apis and sdks? How’s that sustainable? The app store itself would be a gigantic loss leader that has to be paid for by iphone sales.

If console makers have to do the same, consoles triple in price

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> No revenue at all for providing stable apis and sdks? How’s that sustainable?

They should go down the hall and ask the MacOS developers how they do it.

Do you also believe that Apple and Microsoft are entitled to a 30% cut when you subscribe to Spotify, Netflix or buy a game on Steam on a desktop device? Right now Apple and Microsoft both get 0, no revenue at all for providing stable apis and sdks, how's that sustainable?

Where does it stop, should Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel get a cut when I place an order on my PC that uses APIs and SDKs provided by those companies? Does this entitlement extend to anyone who facilitated the transaction, like my power company and ISP?

...Apple makes revenue on the devices? On any monthly subscriptions you take with them? On the developers paying for licenses?

And let's not act as if people would use iOS if they couldn't have their apps. It is so much of a net gain to Apple to allow people to develop their apps there's a good chance it's indirectly profitable without any direct revenue from IAP's.

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