> However, retail stores do not accept product submissions from any random person in the world with $99! Retail stores deal mainly with well-known brands. You may view it as a noble, democratic ideal to treat every app developer the same, but in reality this is the path to the crApp Store, full of scams and slop. The value of the App Store to users is supposed to be its curation, and curation requires selectivity.

I would like to live in that world, but Apple cannot choose to be selective without also being way more open towards other stores.

If they don’t, regulators would step almost certainly step in, asking why Apple refuses to sell John Doe’s new todo list app.

They might get away with leaving out the obvious scams, but that could only be limited to checking for obviously incorrect claims.

It couldn’t, for example, ban a $50 a month todo list app. Who’s to say it isn’t worth the money?

(I think they might even get into trouble if they were to ban an “I’m rich” app today, as they did in 2008 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich))

If they do that means giving up revenues and profits. For managers, that likely means giving up bonuses, possibly even their jobs.