Every successful platform has its glory days.
For the iOS App Store, it was the early years after the launch almost 12 years ago when even a fart app could be successful and pull in more than half a million installs. For Google Play, it was in the years after 2012 when there weren’t millions of apps on the platform yet.
Today, things are different.
And it’s one of the reasons why — along with platform shares of revenue — Apple in particular is facing increasing antitrust scrutiny. And why Apple was recently in the news for all the wrong reasons as the company rejected Basecamp’s Hey email app mostly over financial reasons, almost kicking it off the App Store before an eleventh-hour deal.
Because you’ll pay more as a mobile developer for promotion than for simple distribution.