First-order effects

• App publishers and advertisers buying user acquisition face a shrinking pool: with two-thirds of US consumers installing nothing monthly, paid-install campaigns compete for a small minority of downloaders.
• The apps already on home screens absorb nearly all incremental attention, so incumbents' engagement metrics rise even as their install funnels flatten.

Second-order effects

• Monetization decouples from download volume — App Annie's later tallies show consumer spending climbing far faster than downloads, from $86B globally in 2017 (175B downloads, $86B spent) to $143B in 2020 on only 7% download growth (218B downloads, $143B spent) — pushing developers toward subscriptions and in-app purchases from existing users.
• Discovery channels like app-store charts and install ads lose pricing power relative to retention tools, since the marginal dollar buys re-engagement rather than a first install.

Third-order effects

• If the pattern holds, the app economy structurally consolidates around a fixed set of pre-installed winners, and the competitive battleground shifts permanently from distribution to keeping and monetizing the users already inside.
• Measurement firms like comScore gain leverage as buyers need panel-based engagement data — not download counts — to price media against where time actually goes.