You're right - in my previous message I made the mistake of implicitly "mixing" the apps with the app stores. However, this is due to the fact that no average

You're right - in my previous message I made the mistake of implicitly "mixing" the apps with the app stores. However, this is due to the fact that no average company typically has the time/money/interest to run an app store as their side project, except for the big players, which in many cases happen to be the same people producing high volume apps and having payment methods capabilities. You could claim that Telegram or Zoom have no app store and they would never plan to do so, and you'd probably be right, but the BIG or very BIG ones are MS, Google, Amazon and Meta one way or another have already their own app stores. They even mention that "less than 1% of the developers would be affected by the Core Technology Fee". You want to really keep these guys on your app store, because imagine if you didn't find office, zoom, gmail, youtube on the official App Store. That'd be really weird - it reminds me of the microsoft store (on some old windows phone I had the pleasure to setup...) that didn't have some important apps. To answer the other question - they could be running an app store...: Why would Google or Valve run a store for lower-volume apps? Please note that they mention "less than 1% of the developers", not "less than 1% of the apps hosted". It means: google, facebook, ms, epic games, etc. Those are the guys that you will probably never have on the alternative app store (because of the huge fees that they might have to pay). EDIT: In 2022 there were about 34 million registered developers [0]. 1% is 340'000. This is where the big money is. [0]: https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/06/apple-now-has-over-34-million-registered-developers https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/06/apple-now-has-ove...