Have you ever tried to get into the Apple app store? Not as a consumer, but as a developer, I mean? Apparently, it’s pretty tough (just ask the guys from Opera or Wobble iBoobs!). App stores are all different with respect to their associated operating system, development language, the policy of approval and profit sharing rate. In fact, some application stores have entry barriers so high or a refuse policy that almost makes it impossible for developers to get in and stay in regardless of how good their programming skills and ideas.

Nevertheless, Apple’s app store (I do hate that phrase, we used to just call them programs, didn’t we?) saw 150 new applications registered each day in its first year and profit in that first year was estimated at between $20 and $45 million. So someone must have been doing something right, even if it was only Apple.

However, while a two-sided market brings each group – developers and consumers – together through a network effect, as has been seen with the open source software community, for instance, it seems certain proprietary stores are so locked down that there remains the traditional disjunct between the two sectors and this could be stifling innovation. According to Korean research Bong Gyou Lee of Yonsei University in Seoul and colleagues, “Killer applications in app stores attract consumers, increase network effects of the store, and make a more enjoyable and profitable atmosphere. This leads to customers’ lock-in.”

It’s that lock-in that I don’t like. I know there are arguments for it based on security, but more arguments against it in terms of privacy, monopoly, and the closed nature of such a set up. Personally, I’d rather have full control over a piece of hardware I purchase than be forced to use particular applications and procedures regardless of whether that supposedly offers me a little bit more security and a purportedly better “experience”.

Lee and colleagues essentially agree arguing on the basis of a survey across Korea that a doubled-edge app “store” that is more open than any locked-down system would not only encourage developers to participate more enthusiastically in the community, but boost consumer interest in networking with the developers and each other. Ultimately this more meshed and engaging scenario would lead to greater revenues for the store itself, which might be a commercial or non-profit concern.

Bong Gyou Lee, Gun Hee Lee, Yong Ho Shim, & Ajin Choi (2010). Let developers run into the app store by lowering the barrier-to-entry Int. J. Electronic Finance, 4 (3), 201-220