for those that remember 90s tech.. it was a Very Big Issue that Apple created The Apple Store where all software must be purchased (online). Lots of smaller companies made money selling software for Macintosh in various ways.. because they ran their own store, you know, the ones that determine and hold the profit margins on sales? It was not-at-all decided that the one mothership company should run the only store, and to REQUIRE users to purchase software there?

The phone ecosystem has since become FAR more dollars per month than Mac software ever was in its entirety, and the norms of the phone market are not the norms of the desktop market. Massive centralization is ordinary with the phones.. meaning centralized control.

There is nothing ordinary about the way citizens and phones and markets are working .. this is new territory.. without commenting on the article, I take the headline as a comment on the (highly controversial) Apple Store. Evolving past that Apple company store is news.