App stores are hugely lucrative—and under attack

Since the first iPhone landed in people’s pockets in 2007, apps have steadily become the portal of choice to the digital world. The mobile devices on which they run now account for two-thirds of global web traffic. Inhabitants of rich countries spend about five hours a day, roughly a third of their waking lives, staring at apps. Globally some 3.5bn people use them each month.

That has made the app stores that distribute them a lucrative business for Apple and Alphabet, the tech titans whose iOS and Android operating systems power the vast majority of mobile devices around the world. That, in turn, has drawn the attention of governments, which are leaning on the duopoly to limit access to disfavoured apps while also working to loosen its stranglehold over the market. They risk irking consumers on both counts.