agreed on those, and it should be noted that record labels do provide similar services to their artists. My post was more about how there is no way around these middlemen.

So if you're doing the app equivalent of pop music (twitter apps, casual games), you're probably fine. But try to do something more ambitious, and they'll crush you (well, close the only channel to the customers, at least)

True, although I feel there is still plenty of room for as-yet-unseen ambition in projects that fit within the rules (for every app store). And it's worth pointing out that there is a significant benefit to the users for restricting what apps can do -- albeit at the risk of reducing the more 'ambitious' projects for the sake of the least common denominator of users.