The App Store Duopoly Is Cracking — What Comes After Matters More Than the Crack
— By Eliot Nash
Court rulings, regulatory pressure, and the EU's Digital Markets Act are forcing Apple and Google to open their platforms in ways they've resisted for 15 years. The more important question isn't whether the duopoly cracks — it's what the resulting ecosystem looks like and who benefits.
Key Implications
- The EU's Digital Markets Act, enforced from March 2024, has already forced Apple to allow alternative app marketplaces on iOS in Europe. The precedent is set; the question is how quickly it spreads to other jurisdictions and how effectively Apple constrains it through technical means.
- Alternative app distribution doesn't automatically benefit developers. Fragmentation across multiple app stores increases distribution complexity, security review overhead, and payment system management — costs that large publishers can absorb and that small developers may not be able to.
- Web distribution and Progressive Web Apps — the alternative that bypasses both Apple and Google entirely — benefit disproportionately from any weakening of native app store walls. Companies that have already invested in strong PWA experiences are well-positioned for a more fragmented distribution landscape.
- The payment processing reforms are more immediately valuable to developers than distribution reforms. Apple and Google's 15–30% commission on in-app purchases is the economic mechanism that large developers have fought hardest against — and the most consequential reform for developer economics.
For fifteen years, Apple and Google have operated the most profitable tollbooth in the history of technology. The 15–30% commission on app store purchases, the exclusive distribution gatekeeping, the review process that can arbitrarily delay or block any product — these were accepted as the price of access to mobile users, because there was no alternative path to those users.
That's changing, and the pace of change is accelerating faster than most developers and investors are modeling.
The EU's Digital Markets Act represents the most significant structural intervention. Under DMA enforcement, Apple must allow alternative app marketplaces on iOS in the European Economic Area, must allow developers to use alternative payment processors, and must allow developers to distribute apps outside the App Store entirely via sideloading. Apple has implemented these requirements in ways clearly designed to minimize uptake — the notarization requirements, the core technology fees, the consent flows designed to discourage users from switching to alternatives — but the legal framework requires the capability to exist.
The pattern from similar regulatory interventions in technology is instructive. The first few years produce limited visible change, because the incumbent's defensive implementation is technically compliant while operationally discouraging. But each regulatory review cycle tightens the constraints, and each legal challenge by alternative distributors produces case law that limits the incumbent's freedom of action. The eventual equilibrium is usually more open than the incumbent wanted and less open than regulators hoped.
For product builders, the strategic implication isn't to immediately pivot to alternative distribution — the infrastructure isn't mature enough and the user base following you there isn't large enough. It's to make strategic investments now that give you flexibility: strong web product experiences, payment infrastructure that isn't entirely dependent on in-app purchase systems, and user relationship data that you own regardless of distribution channel.
The app store duopoly is cracking. The companies that benefit most from the crack will be those who prepared for it.
Conclusion
The App Store duopoly's slow crack matters more in its second-order effects than its first. The companies best positioned for what comes after aren't the ones lobbying hardest for reform — they're the ones that built distribution flexibility before they needed it.
Tags: #app-store, #apple, #google, #regulation, #dma, #distribution, #mobile