[void_mint]

I may get downvoted, but this was my biggest complaint about the "Apple needs many app stores" arguments being made against their monopoly. I'm not really interested in having to swap between many different service-hubs to use individual products offered by those hubs. Much like how we now have shows being offered on Hulu, Prime, Netflix, Apple TV, whatever-the-office-is-on-now, and games on Steam, Epic, Origin, etc. Once products are not bound to a monopoly, everyone wants to become a player in that space, which almost means every product you want is sold out of its own store.

It feels kind of like a lose-lose from a consumer perspective.

[tomnipotent]

> is sold out of its own store

Lose-lose because you have to do a TINY bit more work to find product, while taking advantage of potentially better pricing and knowing more of the profit is going to creators instead of middlemen?

I love the fact that I have access to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max and can cancel/renew individual services pretty much without friction or anything more than a month-to-month contract. It's not any more work to install an app, than it used to be to call your cable companies customer service to change services.

Similarly, I have Steam, EA Desktop, GOG, Epic Games, and a few other game clients installed. Many games can be found across all of them, while others are exclusive. In these cases, it isn't any more effort to remember which app I need to use as it was what channel I need to swap to when watching TV.

I just don't see where customers are losing out, when it's the best we've ever had it.

[void_mint]

> Lose-lose because you have to do a TINY bit more work to find product, while taking advantage of potentially better pricing and knowing more of the profit is going to creators instead of middlemen?

My priority is my time and effort. To say its a tiny bit more work handwaves any argument behind your individual value-metric. To you it's a tiny bit more work, to me it is an amount of friction I'm usually not interested in dealing with. I don't want to maintain an account with every service provider. I don't want to provide my email address and credit card number to anybody who asks. Much less, I don't want to have to search and find what market I can purchase content on.

> I love the fact that I have access to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max and can cancel/renew individual services pretty much without friction or anything more than a month-to-month contract. It's not any more work to install an app, than it used to be to call your cable companies customer service to change services.

It is matter-of-factly more work than having content centralized, which was the origin of the parent comment and my statement. Multiple app stores are the decentralization of content, by definition.

> Similarly, I have Steam, EA Desktop, GOG, Epic Games, and a few other game clients installed. Many games can be found across all of them, while others are exclusive. In these cases, it isn't any more effort to remember which app I need to use as it was what channel I need to swap to when watching TV.

You're welcome to decide that this is fine for you. My point is that it is not fine for me. More garbage to configure to get the same end result is, to me (a consumer), a net negative.

edit I'll also add that your entire comment totally ignores those that aren't very tech literate. I love that my mom has a single app store to use, and doesn't have to juggle multiple different providers to maintain the things she uses.

[paulryanrogers]

While not for most grandmas there is GOG Galaxy which can consolidate the interface for many of the stores.

[bitbearr]

I do love GOG Galaxy but its nothing more than a facade. It helps to tell you what games you own but launching them is every bit a pain in the ass since you still need to own and launch them of the platform you bought them on.

[HWR_14]

>I love the fact that I have access to Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max and can cancel/renew individual services pretty much without friction or anything more than a month-to-month contract.

Well, first, it's entirely probable that month-to-month contracts will at some point end, as people cancel things, etc. But more importantly, do you not remember when no one else cared about streaming rights and Netflix just had, well, everything? It was nice (and cheaper)

[axiosgunnar]

If you don't want to use 3rd party stores, simply don't. Other users using 3rd party stores does not hurt you. And if companies decide to only publish their software on a 3rd party store, they would lose you as a customer, so market forces would make sure your primary story is served as well, if it makes sense from a business POV.

[tweetle_beetle]

Eventually management solutions pop up to solve this problem. For example Playnite for games - https://playnite.link/