It’s a mix of things I believe. Apple insists on owning the entire customer relationship, preventing an App owner from directly communicating with their users.

It’s a mix of things I believe. Apple insists on owning the entire customer relationship, preventing an App owner from directly communicating with their users. From Apple’s point of view, this was probably a deliberate business decision: being able to communicate with your users can be abused by bad actors & Apple decided that it was better /for them/ that they prevent the Apple brand being tarnished by association by preventing any communication between App developers and App users. The downside of this is that without that communication, innovation on the App store has pretty much stalled. I’m not the only one making this argument: it’s something that John Gruber (hardly an Apple sceptic!) has made repeatedly. As an App seller, one might reasonably want to: . Carry out market research on a representative cross section of users. . Communicate directly with users for bug reports and errors. . Have a channel for real, high touch end user support. . Sell to end-users in ways that are not limited by the App store model that Apple enforces . Communicate with end users (on an opt-in basis) for marketing & cross-selling other Apps. In general, the App store model works fine for low-priced, low-sales touch, high sales numbers Apps. It’s terrible for high-touch, high value applications, which is why you simply don’t see very many of those being developed for the App store - they’re just not viable. It’s this lack that Gruber especially complains about & I think he’s right. Where are the $100 Apps that fulfill a need that only a small number of people have? No-where, because they can’t reach their customers on the App store, so there’s no point even developing them. (Obviously this is talking in sweeping generalities here: there are some high value Apps, but none of them are sold through the App store - the App is supporting some service that is sold elsewhere.)