The answer may lie in seemingly trivial places. Even one or two extra clicks can dissuade a user from consummating what he or she meant to do—a lesson emphasized in the Microsoft case, where the ready availability of IE on the desktop was seen as a signal advantage over users’ having to download and install Netscape. The default is all-powerful, a notion confirmed by the value of deals to designate what search engine a browser will use when first installed. Such deals provided 97 percent of Firefox-maker Mozilla’s revenue in 2010—$121 million. The safety valve of “off-road” apps seems less helpful when people are steered so effortlessly to Stores and Marketplaces for their apps.
Really great piece by Jonathan Zittrain on the App Store/Marketplace hegemony. Still chewing through this, but I broadly agree with his hand-wringing. Will platforms built on HTML5 be the savior? I doubt it based on the above quote.
