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> Remember dealing with distributors and middlemen before the App Store? Uhhh.. remember hosting fees, payment processors, ad networks?

• zepto 6y ago
  Yeah - it was vastly more difficult to deal with that patchwork than just uploading to the App Store, and the friction for consumers meant much worse sales performance.
  • jariel 6y ago
    This is false, and tons of software providers do it already today. For smaller shops in an open market, they'll be a ton of vendors willing to do the 'full stack' checkout experience for a fraction of what Apple/Google charge. For one, Shopify will open up a 'Software Goods' version of their front end to manage digital inventory and that's that. $20/month.
    • zepto 6y ago
      This is not false. Presumably Shopify will do nothing to scan the software for malware, build a privacy framework, deal with incremental downloading of content, etc. etc. The App Store is not just a bunch of urls with a paywall in front of it.
    • 908B64B197 6y ago
      > For smaller shops in an open market, they'll be a ton of vendors willing to do the 'full stack' checkout experience for a fraction of what Apple/Google charge. I suppose they also provide the ecosystem of devices and the extremely valuable higher-income market segment Apple targets.