App Store Governance: Beyond the Duopoly

Executive Summary

Discussions of "app store" governance have over-focused on Apple's App Store and Google Play, whose scale and gatekeeping power obscure smaller app store ecosystems. There is currently no formal policy debate about app stores of any kind in Canada, even as the federal government consults on the Future of Competition Policy. This is disappointing, because Canada is home to an app store of its own: Shopify's App Store, which offers over 8,000 apps for merchants to customise their online stores. Unlike Amazon, Shopify is not a marketplace connecting brands with consumers, but its infrastructure may tacitly promote deceiving them.

Because Shopify's primary fidelity is to merchants rather than consumers, its developer-led app ecosystem can enable deceptive designs such as fake "low inventory" claims that rush consumers, fake reviews, and green-washing apps promising unverifiable carbon offsets. The essay asks two questions: in what ways is Shopify's app store anti-competitive as a platform, and in what ways does it promote anti-competitive digital infrastructure that complicates e-commerce governance. Shopify's commitment to app "quality" targets business owners, not consumers, and it may overstate the strictness of its reviews while allowing fake-review apps. In April 2021 the firm claimed to have "removed over 1.5 percent of apps" for failing trust and integrity standards, though without a predictable review cadence. Other competition concerns include letting developers keep the first $1M earned while cutting commissions from 20% to 15%, and self-preferencing of free Shopify-made apps over paid third-party ones.

Debate on app store regulation has focused on "front-end" interventions and under-explored how app tools shape the "back end" of online environments. As Canada considers reforms to its Competition Act, including recent abuse-of-dominance and drip-pricing amendments untested in case law, policymakers must confront which platform activities they genuinely intend to target, and whether Canada already has the tools it needs but lacks the motivation or resources to use them. Confronting "our" platforms before regulating others could also build credibility in trade negotiations.