> How can Apple’s App Store prices be monopolistic if the App Store has driven software prices so low that a lot of developers are having a hard time making money?
Because the issue is the price of app distribution, i.e. the part of the price Apple gets, not the part of the price the developer gets. The fact that the developers are getting squeezed is what you expect to happen when some other part of the supply chain is monopolized, because more of the revenue goes to the monopoly and less to the developer.
> Before the App Store, software licenses for Mac software could be priced in the $40-$70 range for software that might have had feature parity with what you get in a $3-$10 app on iOS these days.
The desktop and mobile markets are very different. For one thing, the people paying for desktop apps are primarily businesses whereas iOS apps are sold primarily to individuals. The mobile market is also bigger, which means more customers to amortize costs over which should result in lower prices.
Compare the price of iOS apps to Android apps. They're not lower and if anything are higher.
Because the issue is the price of app distribution, i.e. the part of the price Apple gets, not the part of the price the developer gets. The fact that the developers are getting squeezed is what you expect to happen when some other part of the supply chain is monopolized, because more of the revenue goes to the monopoly and less to the developer.
> Before the App Store, software licenses for Mac software could be priced in the $40-$70 range for software that might have had feature parity with what you get in a $3-$10 app on iOS these days.
The desktop and mobile markets are very different. For one thing, the people paying for desktop apps are primarily businesses whereas iOS apps are sold primarily to individuals. The mobile market is also bigger, which means more customers to amortize costs over which should result in lower prices.
Compare the price of iOS apps to Android apps. They're not lower and if anything are higher.