1) Apple is the most profitable company in the world, deals like this are why. It wouldn't behoove them to take less money than what is available on the table.
2) It would leverage Apple to promote only high grossing, high selling apps. This would change the way developers market and sell their apps. And provide disincentive to work on it more after it reached a threshold (maybe).
In answer to your points you can argue them to mean the opposite too:
1) No skin really off Apple's nose then is there, minimal change on bottom line and a win for small devs, their ecosystem and they look like a cool company who listens.
2) They only do this now anyway, that's why the App store is so shit and has had so few new features (especially around discoverability) since its inception. No incentive to push smaller indy devs apps (and also because Apple wants to maintain a feel of high quality as opposed to long tail).
It's not a terrible idea, no reason for Apple not to play nice really as it barely affects them.
You might be correct, it can be seen from both sides.
> No skin really off Apple's nose then is there
Ive never known Apple not to care about every penny it can make and keep, I just dont see them giving up on this, but rather push the devs to make software that is better and sells better so the 70% they earn can mean more to everyone's bottom line. Maybe... but I that's not how Ive ever seen Apple operate. The fact that they make developers pay $99/per just to develop apps is indication they dont care about this.
> no reason for Apple not to play nice
They never play nice, they are cutthroat, just like Amazon. It's how they manage to stay on top. They realized that not only are customers a profit center but also content producers they can make money on both ends.
