App stores, pioneered by Apple, aim to provide ease of payments and discoverability to developers and consumers. However,

1. do they offer unique advantages that no other payment or discoverability system can match?
2. is Apple’s success transferable to other app stores?

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App stores, so it is assumed, will allow developers to forge a direct link to consumers, which causes consumers to directly pay developers for their hard work. Thus they’re secretly seen as a shortcut for the hard work of a start-up, that (ideally) also forges such links.

This monetisation argument is the fetish of the current age. Unfortunately it is utter and complete rubbish. The fundamental problem, as I calculated months ago, is that there’s just not enough money in the app store economy to support a meaningful number of independent developers.

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