Amazon Turns Off In-App Purchases In iOS Comixology

whisper_jeff writes: "Under the bold assumption that, since they were able to do it with books, they must be able to do it with comics, Amazon has decided to avoid Apple's 30% cut of in app purchases by removing the option from digital comic book platform Comixology for iOS users. It will be interesting to see if digital comic readers leap through the extra hoops to read digital comics on their iOS device or if Amazon has just signed the death knell for their new purchase. Readers may decide that buying a book and buying a comic aren't the same thing — that the extra hoops they're being forced to leap through simply aren't worth it for a comic that takes five minutes to read."

30% is such a nice cut

[postmortem]

If you're mafia, or Apple.

Re:Are they allowed to do that?

[alvinrod]

It probably makes sense for Amazon to do it though considering they have their own infrastructure for handling payments and their own huge customer base. They don't own the content that's being sold either, so I imagine that Apple's 30% cut eats into potential profits by a large amount.

Re:You mean, such a low cut...

[GryMor]

30% wholesale is 23% of retail, apple is taking 30% of retail (42% of wholesale if they were the store), AND THEY AREN'T EVEN THE STORE.

Amazon is worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a VAST oversimplification with a huge "axe to grind against Amazon" and/or "fanboyism of Apple" slant at best.
Not to mention the whole "setting the workplace back 100 years" is 100% pure BS.
You're forgetting Wal-Mart already existed long before Amazon even made any significant inroads into anything beyond selling physical books online at good prices and with an unmatched selection and good, though impersonal, service.
I happen to LIKE seeing companies like Amazon help keep things in check to some degree.

Face reality, developed countries will never return to the mom & pop corner store days, so if there are at least three or four big companies vying for each market, that's a heck of a lot better than only one or two since neither monopolies nor duopolies tend to work out very well for consumers. I don't want Amazon to rule the world, but I sure as heck don't want Apple or Facebook or Google or Wal-Mart to either. It's good for someone to put Apple in their place from time to time.

Re:As a big comixology user, this *sucks*

[Richy_T]

What overheads to Apple have *at all* from items sold in-app from a phone you have purchased over your own internet connection or data plan?