App marketplaces are great all around. Great for users - more functionality. Great for partners - easy access to distribution/users. Great for the marketplace owner - improve your product, while adding network effects that deepen your moat against competitors.
The question is often how closely they let apps compete with them. Ie, can I roll out a (cheaper) invoicing solution with for example a $5/invoice cap. Quickbooks et al do allow this. Some players do not like that.
It's almost like any successful developer needs to develop an app thats popular but not that popular and verging on slightly more difficult so that the moat holder (in this case Stripe) doesn't want to build it themselves. Alternatively make something that catches fire really quickly and sell very quickly before they can build it themself.
App marketplaces are great all around. Great for users - more functionality. Great for partners - easy access to distribution/users. Great for the marketplace owner - improve your product, while adding network effects that deepen your moat against competitors.