If the customer had to go to three different app stores
to get what they want or just one.
I also have one mall where I make all my shopping and one phone carrier that provides me with what I need.
BUT I CHANGED my phone carrier twice in the last 5 years, and I ended up with one that has better contractual terms and lower prices.
It's not about finding iphone apps but about having to have your credit card info in one store (iphone) vs. having it a different app stores (android)
With regards to changing your phone carrier that actually just proves my point.
With apple telcos can't make their own app store with android they can.
In other words, androids ecosystem will be fragmented, I will have to be a verizon customer or a Amazon customer or a t-mobile customer.
You don't have that problem with Apples app store. And that is the reason why it's better for the customer.
You've also probably been spoiled by the country you live in, but I used to live under a communist system where there was no such thing as consumer choice and competition.
YES, it makes people unhappy to make choices (I've seen the switch in mentality on a large-scale). But it makes their lives better, since a free marketplace that allows choice is driven by natural-selection, with trends like lower and lower prices, better and better service.
That's called a paradox and you're not seeing the forest from the trees, or you're just some shill.
My claim was that multiple app stores isn't a benefit for the consumer. You still haven't told me how that is a benefit to the customer. What is better about the multiple app stores that sells android apps and then the app store from apple.
Pray tell. How is that better today? From a consumers point of view? Is it more expensive? More tedious? So far your sole argument is confusing communism with consumerism.
The I think rather than open vs. free, Android and iPhone could better be compared by choice vs. simplicity. Android gives you choice on just about every bit of the phone (new marketplace, new home screen, new soft keyboard -- all without rooting) whereas on the iPhone it's Steve's way or the high way.
Now Steve's way is pretty damn good and it benefits a ton from the simplicity of not having choices, but it's not really possible to make a "best" choice for everyone, and Android can really hit a wider range of tastes. Whether any of the manufacturers/networks are doing that well now is very debatable.
Also, how the ability to discover apps is not part of the market, having my credit card in only one store is much less important to me than finding good apps. In fact if one store allowed me to use paypal instead of a credit card I would probably use that store.
No one is talking about only one market.