"A much more apt analogy would be a retail store"
A retail store buys the goods from you in advance and then try to resell them. So the analogy doesn't work at all.
It's OK for me if Apple buys from me a million apps licenses, and then try to sell them at 30-50% more than they paid them to me.
Given the average app size, probably the storage needed is just like my NAS. All the other activities any company large enough can provide itself, at a far cheaper price. Moreover companies selling music like Spotify don't really need to promote what it sell itself.
Even if you are a retail store and sell - for example - iPhones, you don't really need to promote them much yourself.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
