Lion Pricing Why so cheap

A few reasons-

Apple makes money off hardware, not software. They can gain good-will with low prices.

Gets people using the Mac App Store, if they carry on Apple gets its 30% cut.

Cheaper distribution as no packaging etc

 

That is the price for the downloadable version, the USB flash memory thumb drive with Lion will cost 69 USD.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...able_on_usb_thumb_drive_for_69_in_august.html

 

That is for just the download. A usb version will be available in August for $69.

 

Not having physical media means:
No package design costs
No disc graphics design costs
No booklet printing costs
No disc production costs
No putting the disc & booklet in the package costs
No warehousing costs
No shipping costs
etc...

For the old US$129 you paid, more than half of that was eaten up by those costs, and others...

 

I think its because Apple realizes that people are more likely to Pirate an OS if it costs $130 rather than $30.

For $30 I will def buy it. For $130... let me fire up Transmission

 

did you actually take a look at what you get with lion? not a whole lot, most of which should be included in free updates.

Big name features are near useless, such as lauchpad. Mission control is pretty much the same as what you had before, just blended together.

Seriously when you get down to it, there isn't a whole lot different that the majority of users are going to actually use regularly.

For $30, someone may justify themselves the need for full-screen safari on a MBA11" and a few other "improvements".

For over $100, huge negative reviews would be flooding in. Packaging and physical media costs almost nothing, especially when it is mostly sold through their own channels.

They are trying to expand their market, and this is great a PR move to sell hardware when consumers see they sell software updates so cheap.

 

It's brilliant marketing is what it is.