The traditional approach to distributing apps has always been straightforward: develop, submit the app to an app store, wait for its approval, and hope that someone finds it.

And it worked quite well before. But the number of people who are wondering whether this approach makes sense nowadays is growing.

This is far from suggesting that app stores will be gone by tomorrow. However, some things might be too costly to justify anymore.

Friction that no one likes to acknowledge

Application marketplaces solve the problem of distribution, yet they add an element of friction that is often overlooked.

Developers must contend with:

Delays caused by reviews that affect speed

Uncertainty related to rejection because of ambiguous policies

Deductions of up to 30 percent from revenue

High reliance on platform policies

None of these is a new factor.…