The publication of a paper is always a significant moment for every scholar. It becomes even more special for the author who makes their first true solo contribution to the field.

The publication of a paper is always a significant moment for every scholar. It becomes even more special for the author who makes their first true solo contribution to the field.

The paper “Persistence in mobile app ecosystems: App longevity via updates and the role of complementor specialization” has just become available at Long Range Planning, one of the oldest journals in the field of strategic management since 1968, and is indexed by Web of Science and Scopus.

My study explains the competition in cyberspace. It describes the strategies for the survival of applications in this dynamic context. I illustrate how the winner-take-all competitive logic, the platform-level phenomenon, can be applied to complementors’ apps. App updates that introduce new connectivity and interconnectivity features help to utilize network effects, and thus, they help employ winner-take-all competitive logic on the app level. Complementor specialization is known to attenuate app longevity. However, it can strengthen the positive effect of app updates on their longevity. I found support for these predictions based on nearly entire populations of applications observed on the Google Play Store. These findings are relevant for practitioners— platform owners whose aim is to maximize value creation and the specialized complements who were found to have an app update advantage.

I am highly grateful for the developmental guidance of the editor and reviewers, who helped me elevate the conceptual clarity and rigor of my findings. Special thanks to the mentors and academia at large for fostering my growth.

Access the article online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2025.102514