It made sense in the early days, phone operators were charging up to 90% for the infrastucture to send an SMS, and get a download link to a J2ME/Windows CE/Pocket PC/Symbian/Palm/Blackberry download link to install the app.

So everyone raced to the iOS app store, it was only 30%, what a great deal!

The problem is that two decades later it is no longer that great deal in mobile duopoly world.

It's kind of interesting that while the structure is largely the same, the underlying behaviour/intent has morphed from a disruptor-model into being toxic rent-seeking behaviour.