Earlier quoted context omitted.
The economics of all of that seem sketchy to me. It sounds like the main North American market is subsidizing the apps being produced and sold worldwide. Does the same logic apply for other virtual good such as digital music elsewhere?
It's really the opposite, it's a form of price discrimination. There's a theory of surplus in economics, which is the extra benefit that someone gets from a transaction above what they would have been willing to pay. If I buy a game that I would have paid $100 for for $50, then I have a "$50" consumer surplus. One the other end, if the producer was willing to let that game sell as low as $40, then they have a produce…
It's a bit deeper than that, let me share my perspective of purchasing software in a developing country.
Growing up I remember that video games only picked up in popularity when you could "buy" pirated games. For reference, I'm talking about the Nintendo Wii era and those were about 1-3 USD each for a CD with the pirated version of the game. Also for reference, right now a Nintendo Switch game (that costs $60 MSRP in the US) sells for about $90 due to taxes and stuff [1].
To me, there's two significant issues with that: 1. People don't feel like they are stealing when buying pirated goods. They are spending their hard-earned cash into something they want/like, and that's as far as their reasoning goes. This happens for other software like Photoshop too, and even physical goods. I remember buying fake yu-gi-oh cards knowing they were fake, but that's the only ones that were available and that I could afford. I had a few legit ones and I treated them as a treasure, in the same way you treat your fancier clothes better than your normal ones. 2. You can have a full meal in a diner for about $3 in my country, desert and all. If you want to sell food, that's how low you have to go because that's what people can afford. A $10 dollar meal is normal in the US, but here it would be a luxury.
Now, that combination is very problematic as you can expect. People do want to pay for stuff, and to their minds that's what they are doing. To me, selling pirated goods is as scummy as it gets, but I cannot blame someone for buying it when it's their only choice.
So for most companies, having "regional" prices on this markets is the difference between selling or not.
[1] Not exagerating at all, google `700 GTQ to USD` and then this https://www.max.com.gt/juego-nintendo-switch-pokemon-violet-...