Stephen Nellis (via MacRumors):
But when the App Store launched in 2008 with 500 apps, Apple executives viewed it as an experiment in offering a compellingly low commission rate to attract developers, Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing and top executive for the App Store, told Reuters in an interview.
“One of the things we came up with is, we’re going to treat all apps in the App Store the same - one set of rules for everybody, no special deals, no special terms, no special code, everything applies to all developers the same. […]” Schiller said.
Repeating this doesn’t make it so. It was a high rate compared with the alternatives at the time, and there most definitely are different rules, different ways of enforcing the rules, and special deals.
Previously:
Update (2020-07-30): See also: Nick Heer.