In June, Apple announced it had reached 75 billion downloads in the App Store. In July, Google Play said it had crossed the 50 billion download milestone. These impressive figures painted a rosy picture for the app economy: An enormous smartphone user base, with 1.9 billion devices expected to sell before 2015 and mobile data traffic accelerating, seemed to promise exponential growth to the app economy in the years to come.

That’s not the whole story, though. An August ComScore report found that nearly two out of three U.S. smartphone users don’t download any apps in a given month.

Where does the app economy really stand today? Have the mobile enthusiasts been wrong this whole time, or are industry naysayers too quick to blow the whistle?

Growing pains of the app economy

The app market has a classic long-tail profile in both distribution and monetization. In the past, the distorted shape…