The App Store Fight Is Moving Back to the Web
The most important app-store story this week is not about a new store. It is about whether developers can point users back to the web without being punished for it.
That sounds small until you follow the money. For years, the mobile app economy has trained founders to think of the web as a landing page and the app store as the place where the real customer relationship begins. Discovery, install, billing, refunds, subscriptions, trust cues, and policy risk all got pulled into two dominant mobile ecosystems. The web stayed open, but often sat outside the highest-value transaction.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority is now testing that boundary. According to recent reporting from The Guardian and the Financial Times, the regulator is consulting on measures that would loosen restrictions preventing app developers from steering users to alternative payment options outside Apple and Google’s app stores. The Guardian reported that the CMA described Apple and Google as an effective duopoly over mobile platforms, with at least 90% of UK mobile devices running on their platforms.
This is not a direct PWA policy. It does not suddenly give iOS web apps new APIs, fix install prompts, or make service workers more powerful. But for installable web apps, it matters because distribution is not only about installation. Distribution is also about where a user signs up, pays, renews, upgrades, cancels, and trusts the product enough to come back.
What Happened
The CMA is looking at app-store rules around steering: the ability for developers to tell users that they can complete purchases somewhere else, typically on the web. The reported proposals focus on whether Apple and Google should allow app developers to direct customers toward alternative payment methods outside their own billing systems.
The business tension is familiar. Apple and Google have historically charged commissions of up to 30% on some in-app purchases and subscriptions. Developers have argued that those fees raise prices, weaken margins, and make it harder to own a direct customer relationship. Platform owners argue that their payment systems protect users from fraud, scams, confusing flows, and weak parental controls.
The CMA’s reported position is not simply “no fees.” The Guardian noted that Apple and Google could still levy fair fees for steering, while developer groups are pushing for those fees to be justified transparently. That distinction matters. A rule that allows links to external checkout but attaches a high platform fee may change the interface while preserving much of the economics.
Google says it has already made changes, including allowing apps to steer users outside Google Play to complete transactions. Apple continues to warn that taking users away from its payment infrastructure reduces protections. The regulator is also reportedly considering whether Apple should open access to NFC technology, which would affect payments more directly inside native iOS apps.
Why Web App Builders Should Care
For founders and product teams building installable web apps, the obvious question is: if this is about native apps, why does it belong in an IndApp news feed?
Because the web is the destination that steering usually points to.
When an app tells a user to subscribe on a website, upgrade on a website, manage a plan on a website, or complete a purchase through a browser-based flow, the web becomes more than a marketing wrapper. It becomes the commercial layer of the product. If that same web experience is fast, installable, persistent, authenticated, and app-like, it can become the place where the customer relationship lives.
That changes the strategic value of PWA fundamentals:
- Installability becomes a retention tool after web checkout, not just a novelty in the browser menu.
- Service workers help make account, receipt, support, and usage surfaces feel reliable after the user leaves the store environment.
- Manifests and icons turn the web destination into something users can recognize on a home screen or desktop launcher.
- Passkeys and privacy-respecting identity reduce the trust gap between native app account flows and browser account flows.
- Clear origin and domain design become part of the product’s trust architecture, especially when platform owners are warning users about scams.
The opportunity is not that every subscription app becomes a PWA overnight. The opportunity is that web product surfaces become more commercially important when regulators challenge anti-steering rules. The native app may still drive engagement. The web may increasingly own pricing, plan comparison, onboarding, account recovery, support, receipts, and cross-platform continuity.
The Trust Problem Does Not Go Away
Open web distribution has one huge advantage: no gatekeeper has to approve a website before it can be published. It also has one huge burden: users must decide whether to trust the experience themselves.
That is why Apple’s security argument cannot simply be dismissed as theatre, even when developers disagree with Apple’s commercial incentives. Users can be misled by lookalike domains, hostile checkout pages, confusing subscription terms, and fake support flows. If regulators open more room for web-based commerce, the better products will not be the ones that merely escape the store fee. They will be the ones that make the web feel safer, clearer, and more accountable.
For installable web apps, this is where app-like UX and trust design meet. A serious web app should make its identity obvious. It should use a clean domain, visible company details, predictable payment providers, plain refund language, strong authentication, and consistent naming between the native app, website, and installed web app. It should not hide the browser origin or bury the user in dark-pattern upgrade screens.
The strongest version of open web distribution is not “anything goes.” It is a web where developers can reach customers directly and users can still understand who they are paying, what they are installing, and how to leave.
What Changes for Product Strategy
If the CMA’s direction holds, product teams should treat the web as a first-class app surface, not a compliance workaround. That means designing web flows with the same discipline usually reserved for native onboarding.
A few practical questions now matter more:
- Can a user move from native app to web checkout without losing context? If the answer is no, steering creates friction instead of margin.
- Does the web account area feel like the same product? Inconsistent naming, weak responsive design, and slow pages will make users distrust the handoff.
- Is installation offered at the right moment? A PWA prompt before value is noise. A prompt after purchase, activation, or repeated use can become retention.
- Can support and cancellation be handled cleanly on the web? Regulators and users will both scrutinize flows that make payment easy and cancellation hard.
- Does the web app earn trust without borrowing it from the app store? That means transparent identity, secure sessions, and no surprise redirects.
The founders who benefit most will not be the ones who treat external checkout as a hidden discount page. They will be the ones who build a coherent web-owned relationship around the customer.
What IndApp Watches Next
The next signal is whether the CMA turns consultation language into rules with real commercial force. The details will decide whether this becomes meaningful distribution reform or another narrow compliance path with platform fees attached.
IndApp will be watching five things closely. First, whether external web checkout links can be shown clearly inside apps or only through constrained, warning-heavy flows. Second, whether any steering fees are low enough to change developer behavior. Third, whether Apple and Google apply consistent trust messaging or use scary interstitials that discourage users from leaving store billing. Fourth, whether web-based account and payment flows become a competitive advantage for subscription, media, SaaS, education, and game companies. Fifth, whether the same regulatory pressure eventually touches installability, browser choice, and web app capabilities more directly.
This is why the web app angle matters. App stores can remain powerful and still lose exclusivity over the customer relationship. Native apps can keep their place on the home screen while the web becomes the place where users compare plans, pay, manage identity, and install a cross-platform companion experience.
The web does not need to become an app store to matter more. It needs to become the trusted path developers are allowed to show.
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