OpenAI last Thursday launched the official ChatGPT app for iOS 16.1 and later. The free app promises “OpenAI’s latest advancements at your fingertips.” Apple stands to make millions from the app’s $20/mo. “ChatGPT Plus” subscription component.

Thomas Maxwell
 for Business Insider:

From within the app, users can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus, a premium version that costs $20 per month and offers faster response times and priority access to new features. Because OpenAI does not redirect users to a website where they subscribe but uses Apple’s in-app purchasing system, Cupertino is taking it’s usual 30% cut.

“Apple is getting their 30% tax,” as Bernstein tech analysts put it in a note to investors.  Is there a better illustration of a tech monopoly? Apple is behind in AI, and the company has contributed very little to public research in the field. And yet, it will likely make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from this technology, while basically doing nothing. 

Consider a hypothetical scenario, if ChatGPT Plus were to add 5 million new subscribers on iOS, that would equate to roughly $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Taking 30% of that, Apple would collect $360 million a year from OpenAI’s creation.

MacDailyNews Take: Maxwell
 has a warped definition of “nothing.” If OpenAI doesn’t like Apple’s iPhone and App Store, OpenAI could launch their own smartphone and app store and have a go at it. You know, since there’s “nothing” to it.

How much did it cost developers to have their apps burned onto CDs, boxed, shipped, displayed on store shelves prior to Apple remaking the world for the better for umpteenth time? Apple incurs costs to store, review, organize, surface, and distribute apps to over one billion users. — MacDailyNews, June 10, 2022

See also: Apple wins appeal in Epic Games antitrust challenge, App Store policies upheld by court – April 24, 2023

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