Smartphone App Stores: Free market?

In a free market, entry and exit costs are extremely low. Producers are free to develop the products they want and sell them on equal terms with other producers. Online sales are often pointed to as a good representation of the free market system since they often fit these characteristics very closely. Two companies in the current online ecosystem that fulfill this role are the IOS App Store and its direct competitor, the Google Play Store. So which of these stores better fits the free market system? Let's take a look at the distinguishing characteristics of each of these markets.

As mentioned before, one of the markers of a free market system is the entry costs. Both the App and Play stores have an entry fee to the market. For IOS, this cost is an annual 99$ Developer's license. This is significantly higher than the 25$ one-time fee for entry into the Play Store.

Ranking systems for app searches on each store are also very different. While both systems use popularity systems to determine which apps get shown first on the search listings, Google takes it a step further. They keep track of the number of "backlinks," or the number of hyperlinks on the rest of the internet leading to the app's download page. This means that the popularity and mentions of an app outside of the store help determine which apps are presented to the users more strongly.

Additionally, release times on the App Store are significantly longer. Apple takes a significantly longer amount of time reviewing and checking apps, while Google Play puts apps up on the store much faster. This makes publishing apps on Play cheaper and more similar to a free market economy.

So we've established that the Google Play store is a more free market. But is that what the consumer wants? For all its freedoms, the Play store has some inherent problems. It is considered significantly less safe of a market, as a direct result of the lessened precautions. There is also a much larger proportion of poor quality, low budget apps. In exchange for gained freedoms for developers, users lose some amount of quality. In the end, it's up to the consumer to decide, and the market setup of the stores might be one thing you want to take into account when deciding which smartphone to buy.

Sources:
https://www.apptweak.com/aso-blog/apple-app-store-vs-google-play-store-3-major-aso-differences
https://citrusbits.com/difference-app-store-vs-google-play-store/