The problem is quite simple: you lose access to a huge audience.

All iPhone owners go directly to the App Store to search for an application. All Android owners go directly to the Google Play Store to search for an application. Open application stores have never been able to reach a sufficient level to represent a viable alternative to the Play Store on Android.

By only using a Progressive Web App, or by distributing your application outside the centralized Apple and Google circuits, you keep the power, but you'll have to do a huge amount of promotional work to hope for a similar audience.

However, you have to start sometime, just as Bitcoin started sometime and saw its market cap grow over time.

We need to start pulling apps out of these centralized stores to take all this power out of the hands of Google and Apple.

That's what decentralization is all about, but I think a lot of players will refuse to make the necessary initial efforts.

Why do I say this? Every time people from the cryptocurrency world are banned by YouTube, they cry foul and ask for help. They criticize Google for decentralization and start looking for alternative solutions. And then, as soon as Google gives them back access to their YouTube channel, these people start feeding YouTube again and become addicted.

When you tell these people that they need to move towards decentralized solutions, they tell you it's impossible, because these solutions are not financially sustainable... That's how Google and Apple keep baiting them.

At some point, you have to make an effort. Otherwise, these centralized giants will always retain their power!