Apple extracted a 30 percent ground rent from app developers.

Evidence

Because it was too late: with so many people signed up to Apple, the thousands of third-party developers were not going to spend their time and effort developing apps for other platforms. To be competitive, Apple’s unwaged third-party developers, mainly partnerships or small capitalist firms, had no choice but to operate via the Apple Store. The price? A 30 per cent ground rent, paid to Apple on all their revenues. Thus a vassal capitalist class grew from the fertile soil of the first cloud fief: the Apple Store. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 477

Categorization

• SHARE: The specific 30% cut on all App Store developer revenues is a concrete number worth sending to anyone following platform economics or antitrust.
• QUESTION: Apple’s current App Store commission is contested in antitrust cases — where does this 30% figure and its feudal framing go today?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 477