Except that currently these stores do very little to create that meritocracy. I'm not sure they ever truly can. Until then marketing is a huge part of success

Except that currently these stores do very little to create that meritocracy. I'm not sure they ever truly can. Until then marketing is a huge part of success in these stores. Be it working with the press (blogs, traditional press, and everything in between) to good old fashioned advertising. Very few app-store developers have had sustained success without the normal marketing and sales efforts that you need with any other product (at least the ones I have insight into).