I recall reading that some game companies have teams dedicated to catering to individual whales.

definitely true, some friends of mine are in the mobile gaming space and it's ridiculous. Some companies even have a direct line to their biggest spenders to put in features, skins, etc.

Casinos do the same with people who gamble a lot. They call them high rollers.

The median is certainly lower than $79, and may even be $0.

I think it would be if more people realized you can have an iTunes account without a credit card attached. They seem to make it harder with every UX change to set up, but if you don’t have a payment method you can’t give them a penny.

I don't think it is zero if uber and lyft count.

The article is about app and in-app purchases that Apple gets a cut from. Lyft and Uber are in different category and don't pay any fees to Apple on ride purchases.

Just to add a bit of info... in-app purchases are required for things like extra functionality. On the other hand, if you’re using the app as a gateway to a service that is provided outside of the app, you can process payment outside the app. Anyone who can reasonably make this argument tends to do so, as Apple charges ~30% of everything that goes through in-app purchases.

What apps are in the gray area? To me it’s pretty clear and not much room for “making an argument.”

The details of the report say that games spending is more than 50% of in-app spending... so yes, it's game IAPs thus whales.