[Apocryphon]

I think if this was a decade ago, when Facebook was younger (newly post-IPO!), hungrier, and had a better reputation with the public, that might have happened.

But nowadays Meta is older and much more disreputable, many of their new products seem to be clones of other things that exist, from Clubhouse to HQ Trivia, and users are far more jaded towards the company.

Not to mention, mobile and tech in general has matured to a state that a brand new app store, at least from a tech giant everyone knows about, coming to iOS isn't as exciting as it used to be. What does another mobile app store offer the average consumer? They barely download as many new apps from the actual official App Store. Having to deal with another platform account, even if expedited through Facebook login would be another friction point for users, another set of confusing permissions to juggle, another payment system to hook up to, another downloads history to keep track. Users are already getting burned out by having to deal with so many video streaming platforms that piracy is making a comeback, why would they be willing to put up with a Facebook Store just to get Instagram? At least signing up for Paramount+ lets you watch the Halo television show, what does signing up to the Facebook Store do besides let you use Facebook- which you already can?

No, I believe that even if Meta really does launch such a store, they would not be willing to pull their official apps away from the actual App Store. They will hedge their bets because it is unlikely that all, or maybe even most, Facebook users will switch to their app store. If forced to have to use a whole new store for no good reason, many consumers will just stop using Facebook, and find substitutes to Instagram instead.

[Nextgrid]

> What does another mobile app store offer the average consumer?

The fact that most of the apps they use moved over to it because it doesn't have the pro-privacy restrictions that the official App Store has.

[Apocryphon]

Yes, and they would be angry at the people who make their apps for doing that for no apparent reason, the users who are more tech savvy will recognize that this is a ploy to harvest their data by forcing migration to platforms with fewer privacy restrictions, there will be big public backlashes on social media, people will boycott these new app stores simply because of the hassle, the companies will be forced to reverse their decision and put their apps back onto the App Store, and it would be an expensive waste of time.

One can even imagine that if the app getting moved is sufficiently widely used and utility-like, such as WhatsApp or Messenger, or even Facebook itself, the courts might start antitrust investigation into Meta, and that company would face pressure to keep those apps available on both their own Facebook Store and on the official App Store (where the majority of users are). After all, antitrust provisions apply not only to Apple, but to all companies.