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Ask HN: Apple 30% tax a sign of desperation?

2 points by anonymous246 ↗ HN
People seem to be thinking that Amazon asking for 30% of subscription revenue is a sign of strength.

What if it's really a sign of weakness? They don't see their earnings increasing enough through sales of their hardware to justify their sky-high valuation.

So they have to adopt Walmart tactics and squeeze the others in the ecosystem.

Thoughts?

4 comments

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pclark
In it's first year of sales, the iPad would already be a Fortune 500 company.

Apple has no problem making money off their hardware.

mooism2
When you say "Amazon", I take it you mean "Apple"? Unless that's a development I've missed.
nika
It is a freudian slip, since Amazon takes %30-%80 of the money. Apple's flat %30 is cheap compared to the Amazon Android Store, and Apple lets you set the prices (whereas Amazon controls the pricing, so they could sell your app for %90 off to promote their store.)
Synaesthesia
If anything it's a sign of overconfidence. They almost all their money through hardware, and the App store/iTunes store is a very small part of their revenue.