Just as javascript, despite many issues, has drawn more attention and advanced over time, the App Store ecosystem, despite many issues, becomes increasingly hard to escape over time for users, 3rd parties, and the online/offline markets.
Opt-in effect 1. The past and the present
If javascript expanded on the basis of the browser, the App Store ecosystem could grow on the basis of the smartphone.
This was probably thanks to the cleverness of early market entrants, who approached things so that consumers would slowly get used to heuristic framing effects, anchoring effects, and endowed-progress effects. That way, consumption and experience quietly proceeded and took root as familiar; the market that was initially so exclusionary has since come to be understood at a common-sense level. Even policies, laws, and emergency-situation guidance and welfare standards in each country often presume smartphone ownership and use. In other words, we have entered an age where even basic rights can be threatened if you don't have a smartphone.
Javascript was able to advance rapidly as HTML5 launched and took hold in earnest. That's because Flash, previously the default, lost its footing. And by the time Internet Explorer — which everyone agreed was impossible to unseat, holding more than 90% share — disappeared, javascript became a kind of non-standard standard.
The App Store ecosystem began in a romantic era. There was a time when everyone carried a Walkman, CD player, or MP3 player in their bag to listen to music. Based on everyone's bag, the iPod appeared. And through iTunes, it began to change the music ecosystem.
A little later, there was a time when many people carried cellphones instead of pagers. And based on everyone's iTunes and cellphones, the iPhone emerged. And as everyone knows, based on the iPhone, the App Store ecosystem was formed. And once more, as everyone knows: 1) from an H/W (device, features, performance) standpoint, the iPhone was not the first smartphone. PDA phones already existed. Mobile OSes existed; internet, of course, touch notes, calls, and texting were all possible. The sizes were similar to today's phones (back then phones were really small and thin). 2) However, from an S/W (platform, App Store ecosystem) standpoint, things were different. The App Store built its ecosystem on the iPhone; BlackBerry, Pantech, Samsung, LG and others focused on H/W and adopted Google's S/W. They tried several times but for economic and rational reasons, they eventually gave up. (*The current EV market is similar. Tesla operates S/W based on its car-as-a-product, whereas famous makers like BMW, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Kia cannot. What's interesting is that in the car-as-a-product market, Apple is entering with a general-purpose S/W (OS, platform), much like Google did in the early smartphone market.)
Opt-in effect 2. The present and the near future
There was a time when someone released an MD player calling it the next generation, while another released an MP3 player. And there was a period when not only HP but also carriers entered the PDA product market and competed.
The smartphone market today is like that. The App Store ecosystem is like that. Based on smartphones, based on the App Store ecosystem, too many things have come into being. Today, again, we are in the era of apps built on top of apps.
It is overflow.
Whether H/W or S/W, convenient features, once stacked layer upon layer, have become inconvenient. (Maybe that's why nobody mixes jajangmyeon and jjamppong..) Now the messenger app has become so much of a platform that it's inconvenient to use just for sending and receiving messages. Search portals, banks, credit cards, shopping malls.. even used-goods sites have become platforms.
So what about the future?
Looking at the backdrop against which seemingly invincible Walkmans, CD players, and MD players collapsed, it was a time when both technology and the paradigm of lifestyle and value were shifting. Just as, back then, nothing was cooler than walking the streets listening to music, what makes us cool now? What are we opting into in our lives without realizing it? What we're opting into is something like music, not products, hardware specs, or specific platform services. Because products, as I said earlier, are in various ways overflowing, much like Walkmans, CD players, MD players of old. The smartphone was an innovation against the era of cellphones, but there is no innovation in it now. Market participants, hopefuls, and incumbents may not want to admit it, but it's already the new normal.
Pausing my javascript work for a moment, I jot down the thought: what today is the equivalent keyword to "music" in the romantic era?
