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A comment on Apple has paid over $2 billion to app developers, $12 billion to record labels. Parent comment

Re:Apple has paid over $2 billion to app developers, $12 bil... by angstrom on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @09:21AM (#2115852)
They're a middle man providing a service that has taken different forms in the past. You can be cynical, but realistically their goal is to make a profit by providing a service which has it's own costs to cover. How much would those developers have reaped without their service?
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Re:Apple has paid over $2 billion to app developers, $12 bil... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @09:58AM (#2115982)
Lots, lots more. If the Apple their devices weren't monopolistically locked down, or the store was an open market.

Really, you think its worth their cut, just to operate the store? How much overhead would it take you to put up a web store? They only get away with it because they aren't Microsoft.

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Re:Apple has paid over $2 billion to app developers, $12 bil... by ceejayoz on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @10:28AM (#2116069)
> Really, you think its worth their cut, just to operate the store?

That's not all they do, though. They build the platform and heavily market it, too.

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Re:Apple has paid over $2 billion to app developers, $12 bil... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday January 18, 2011 @10:35AM (#2116096)
They get paid for their hardware. Everybody else does too - phones, Android. Apple adds to that a 'company store' model that is unjustified.

They do it only because they can get away with it.

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