Has anyone else noticed a significant drop in App Store traffic over the past few months? I’ve been tracking numbers and impressions are at their lowest point in a long time.
I believe a big part of this is Sidekick. When merchants ask Sidekick for an app recommendation, it consistently suggests the same 2-3 apps per category; almost always the ones already at the top of the listings. Merchants get their answer, install the app, and never even visit the App Store to browse alternatives.
This creates a compounding problem:
Top apps get recommended by Sidekick → more installs → stronger ranking → Sidekick recommends them again. Everyone else loses organic discovery.
I’d love to hear if others are experiencing the same traffic decline.
I’ve seen a massive drop over the past few months. I’ve seen others on Reddit talking about this. Most are attributing it to the large increase in apps due to AI and I’ve seen people complaining about app review times.
Interesting observation on Sidekick. Are that many people using it? I’d be surprised if it had such a dramatic effect. And it’s been around for sometime prior to the drop.
Just played around with it and these Sidekick recommendations are mostly bad
Most merchants I talked to said they are using Sidekick to search for apps these days. Also ChatGPT and others are most likely providing direct links to users contributing to this problem.
Traffic is not being fairly distributed these days and Sidekick, as the internal AI, should ideally promote broader discovery.
