Apple gear is no longer as comparatively expensive as it used to be -- they aren't ripping you off, they have put a lot of work into delivering different 'gear' to what's available in the rest of the market. Shed a tear for people who buy HP and need a new laptop every year or two. I'm typing this on a 7-year old MacBook Pro, which works better than the day I bought it.
Hosting an app marketplace is not a free endeavour either. They host infrastructure to facilitate all of this, and they review app code in an attempt to prevent malware being distributed by underhanded developers. Maybe they could vary the price based on the use case, but why should they? No one is compelled to publish on the App Store, why complicate their business model to give themselves more work for less money.
Hosting an app marketplace is not a free endeavour either. They host infrastructure to facilitate all of this, and they review app code in an attempt to prevent malware being distributed by underhanded developers. Maybe they could vary the price based on the use case, but why should they? No one is compelled to publish on the App Store, why complicate their business model to give themselves more work for less money.