You are somewhat right, but there are two faces in Apple being the super middle-man: 1) the good fact that it is "fair". The underdogs leave to them the same am

You are somewhat right, but there are two faces in Apple being the super middle-man: 1) the good fact that it is "fair". The underdogs leave to them the same amount of money of the big brasses (30%). Any application starts the same, and you don't need special marketing effort to start up. At least, not the same effort you should have to start from scratch. You can use your time to have a better application, not to market it better. And I REALLY like this one. 2) the fact that they have the "last word" on what goes into the AppStore definitely stinks. No need to add to this. I can understand how this happens, but it stinks. The fact is that me (and many thousand other) still prefer the reason (1) to the reason (2) and this is the success of AppStore. Returning to "why Microsoft don't have it": because they don't need the indie developer and they will not upset the bigger brands to help a new market develops. The competitor of Apple in the mobile space are trying to start their store (Nokia, RIM)... if Apple can start the AppStore for OS X (and it have the same success, things I don't know if possible), we will, probably, see the Microsoft Store for Windows... otherwise I don't think so...