But Apple does get a value out of free apps. They make the iPhone a more attractive platform for end-users.
How many people do you think would buy an iPhone if you couldn’t use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or some of the other really big free apps? They NEED those apps.
Apple could easily afford to pay for all the costs of the App Store from purchases of hardware. The $99 is just gravy.
The argument that they NEED the 30% to make up for the “freeloaders” that don’t charge for apps (as Apple seems to suggest) is ridiculous.
Apple gets a tremendous value out of the entire app ecosystem, i’d be willing to bet it’s quite a bit more than 30% they end up collecting.