> Correct. People (rightly) hate on the restrictive and profiteering nature of the App Store, but the telcos were even worse.
The now-hotly-debated 30% cut was seen as a reprieve from telco distribution and brick-and-mortar, where the retailer was taking 60-70% of the purchase price.
Not just 60+% of the price but also upfront access fees for the privilege of being listed. I worked for projects with some decent sized companies and they were interested in phone apps right up until what they saw as a proof of concept project was getting offered terms like $50-80k per carrier just for the privilege of being in the carrier’s store.
This is still better than when Qualcomm was hawking their mobile Java BREW platform around the turn of the century. We had a mid-tier brewery interested in trying a product locator but Qualcomm wasn’t willing to budge on terms which included a percentage of their total gross revenue – they were still insisting on seeing tax filings up until we walked away!
BREW. A pox on that pile of crap. Thanks for reminding me about all that, including the Verizon “Get It Now” store. It does actually make me feel less bitter at the somewhat-less-cynical Apple Way that we have now.
The now-hotly-debated 30% cut was seen as a reprieve from telco distribution and brick-and-mortar, where the retailer was taking 60-70% of the purchase price.