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I am really curious who is paying the free applications you get when installing and using the Amazon Android market program ?

Is it Amazon ( to promote their software/online store ) ? Is it the application/game developer ?

Anyone knows ?

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3 Answers

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According to Amazon's developer agreement (see section 2(a)) a developer receives at least 20% of the price the developer sets for the app, regardless of the price Amazon actually sells it for. According to everything I've read, this applies when Amazon makes an app free; it's not a special case.

Edit: They changed the agreement, adding the sentence "No Royalty is payable for Apps with a List Price of $0.00." This may or may not have changed the original meaning of the agreement; the definition of "List Price" (Section 5(i)) was thought by many, myself included, to mean the original price set by the developer. The wording is not clear and a lot of people obviously misunderstood what was supposed to happen.

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So just to be clear, no one pays for free apps. If you are a dev with a $5 app and amazon decides to give it away free, you are giving it away and will not be paid? – Matt Mar 28 '11 at 19:00
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@Matt No. If you list your app at $5 and Amazon sells it for >= $1.43, you get 70% of Amazon's price. If Amazon sells it for less, you get $1.00 (20% of $5). Edit: Matt was right! – Matthew Read♦ Mar 28 '11 at 19:16
I'm cleaning up the comments here, we're getting too far away from the info needed for the question. – Matthew Read♦ Aug 3 '11 at 13:55
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I think it's Amazon who is paying for those apps. Amazon wants users to get used to using their store. The other answer provides better details.

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