it doesn't help me to say this, but the Shopify App Store is the wild west (in a good way).

it's perhaps even more lucrative than the iOS App Store, circa 2008, because consumers are businesses who will pay $100s /month vs consumers unlikely to download a $1 app, once.

i've built + sold + am still building a handful of Shopify apps. i think the future is going to look a lot like the past... everyone has a store. that's a metaphorical and literal prediction by the way.

Shopify's 20% revenue cut is also fair, for a couple reasons. first, they do most of the marketing for you. second, see the first reason. you'd pay a lot more in ads, PR, content, SEO, and a "marketing guy" to get the same or worse results, supposing they had a 0% revenue share.

i'll stop talking about the wonders of the Shopify App Store for entrepreneurship now. it doesn't help me.