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App Store to Be 'Split in Two' Ahead of EU iPhone Sideloading Deadline
(www.macrumors.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Look at more practical example. Steam, is so big that other publishers said, no we won't put our games in your store anymore. We don't want to pay you 30%, we will make our own stores. Few years later guess where they came crawling back. I mean really big publishers like EA and Ubisoft, on Windows where you can have a store at the snap of your fingers, you don't need Steam. But because Steam is so big and all people buy from Steam, you need to sell there.
In case of Apple it will be even worse, who will dare to not publish in their App Store and leave 99% revenue on the table? Yeah.
I think Steam is not a good comparison. People go to Steam on PC for expensive applications (video games), and for good customer service. Steam actually presents a good value proposition for maintaining your game library. People refused to go to other stores because other stores were crap.
As I understand, there is a significant amount of trivial but essential apps that could be made, and will never get on the App Store, like a calculator that has no ads and no in-app payments. Or for companies like Epic who have big enough IPs that they don't care about discoverability, because they are already viral.
Yes, exposure is a big factor, but if you don't need the exposure, you don't need it. Xbox Game Pass is not on Steam. Microsoft Flight Sim and DCS World both have their non-steam presences alive and kicking, with DCS simply giving you a much better deal if you buy outside Steam, so the niche community around it mostly does.