Terrific graphic from Coatue tonight, highlighting (based on Sensor Tower data) the sharp rise in the number of apps in the Apple App Store over the past eight months. While you can craft many explanations for this, the best one is likely that the cost of producing trivial apps has, under AI coding tools, collapsed, as has the difficulty of setup, glue code, testing, and App Store compliance. (I'm not sure "agentic coding" line belongs, but whatever.)
This is what has happened in every other digital media market, from content, to video, to marketing, to audio, so the rise of low effort "AI app slop" should come as zero surprise. But it will have consequences. Some follow.
Implications:
- Supply shock: App count growth accelerates faster than user demand. Discovery, not development, becomes the constraint.
- Severe crowding: App Store search and charts saturate; marginal apps see near-zero organic installs.
- Hit dynamics skew: A few breakout hits capture disproportionate attention; median outcomes are nada.