Season 3, Episode 18: The future of alternative app stores and payments (with Archie Stonehill)

Mobile Dev Memo Podcast

My guest on this episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast is Archie Stonehill, the Head of Product at Stash, a D2C and web shop enablement tool for mobile game developers. Prior to Stash, Archie was an investor at Makers Fund, a venture capital fund investing in the gaming ecosystem.

In this episode, among other topics, Archie and I discuss:

• The history of alternative mobile app stores, starting most prominently with Epic's Project Liberty and progressing through those lawsuits, as well as Google's settlement with states' attorneys general;
• The current state of affairs with respect to alternative app stores and alternative in-app payments;
• The size of the "shadow IAP economy" on mobile, enabled by web shops;
• How much traction do you think alternative app marketplaces will see in the EU under the auspices of the DMA, including the four that are live now: AltStore Pal, the Aptoide games store, Mobivention, and SetApp Mobile;
• The key advantages of web shops over platform storefronts;
• How developers can overcome the conversion friction inherent in moving users to alternative storefronts.

Thanks to the sponsors of this week’s episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:

• ⁠⁠⁠Clarisights⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠ clarisights.com/demo⁠⁠⁠ to try it out for free. You’ll see why thousands of performance marketers trust Clarisights every day.⁠⁠
• INCRMNTAL⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.

Interested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact ⁠Marketecture⁠.

The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Google Podcasts