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There are a few differences. The big tech companies have a much higher market share. For phone app makers, the App Store is the only point of access to the maj

There are a few differences. The big tech companies have a much higher market share. For phone app makers, the App Store is the only point of access to the majority of affluent Americans; Google controls access to the rest of the 1st world population (sideloading is possible on Android but 99.9% of normies won't use your app if it's not on the store). Amazon does have competitors and you can also run your own e-shop, but they are the gatekeepers for a large portion of the online sales market - getting kicked off of Amazon is going to hurt bad for any online retailer. Of course getting kicked out of Walmart is also bad, but there are lots of competitors that lots of people use (grocery stores which have regional chains as well as smaller local chains, Target, Costco, Amazon, etc.). Which leads into the second point - Apple has a long history of integrating cool features/apps into their OS and then kicking out the original creator from the app store. This destroys the creator / original company and basically transfers the idea's profits to Apple. Retail stores and Amazon do make knockoffs, but generally the original product is still sold alongside it. In many cases the branded product is superior to the generic product and many people will pay extra for it; in many other cases the brand also supplies the generic label product so that's beneficial for both parties.

heavyset_go 5y ago
> The big tech companies have a much higher market share. For phone app makers, the App Store is the only point of access to the majority of affluent Americans; Google controls access to the rest of the 1st world population (sideloading is possible on Android but 99.9% of normies won't use your app if it's not on the store). To use real figures, Apple has 60% of the mobile operating system market in the US[1], and Google has 40%. Apple's App Store has 100% more revenue than Google's Play Store[2], and the two are responsible for over 99% of all mobile app sales in the US. Both Google and Apple dominate the mobile app payment market in the US, as well, since they both ban all other forms of app payments on their app stores. [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-android-dominates-in-china-and-india https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-... [2] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/
- thow-01187 5y ago
  It would be interesting to see the revenue split between App Store and Play Store in the US. Since iOS skews towards more affluent users, and more affluent users are way more likely to spend, it wouldn't be surprising if App store gets 90%+ of the US market in terms of revenue - finally dispelling the "it's not a monopoly" argument

heavyset_go 5y ago

> The big tech companies have a much higher market share. For phone app makers, the App Store is the only point of access to the majority of affluent Americans; Google controls access to the rest of the 1st world population (sideloading is possible on Android but 99.9% of normies won't use your app if it's not on the store). To use real figures, Apple has 60% of the mobile operating system market in the US[1], and Google has 40%. Apple's App Store has 100% more revenue than Google's Play Store[2], and the two are responsible for over 99% of all mobile app sales in the US. Both Google and Apple dominate the mobile app payment market in the US, as well, since they both ban all other forms of app payments on their app stores. [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-android-dominates-in-china-and-india https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-... [2] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/

thow-01187 5y ago
It would be interesting to see the revenue split between App Store and Play Store in the US. Since iOS skews towards more affluent users, and more affluent users are way more likely to spend, it wouldn't be surprising if App store gets 90%+ of the US market in terms of revenue - finally dispelling the "it's not a monopoly" argument