> To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows

> To bring the analogy in line with the App Store, imagine if: (1) Steam was operated by Microsoft, (2) Microsoft only allowed installation of games on Windows through Steam, and (3) Microsoft disallowed installation of alternate OSes on Microsoft PCs. Not only that, because there are other ways to install an app than Steam, the 30% paid to Steam is paying for promotion within their system. Which is valuable because not all apps are available there, so paying for it makes you more likely to be noticed over someone who distributes for the same platform using an external means. If an app store is the only way to install apps on a platform then everybody is paying the fee and therefore nobody is getting promoted over anybody else in exchange for it.