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Comment by max76 | Hacker News Reader

I like the $99/yr bar of entry. That, combined with the more rigid review process, keeps the App Store's average app quality higher than the Play Store's.

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It makes a lot of apps simply impossible to exist. (Indie dev made an app for themselves catering to a niche, also wanting to put up their app for free.)

This trade off is typically okay for iFolk though.

If the market isn’t sigficanlty large so that 144 people will pay 99 cents a year for the app (the minimum requirement to cover the developer’s cost) than the application is probably not tested and developed to a high enough standard that I want to run it on my cell. I consider my cellphone production hardware, and treat it as such.

It might be, but we'll never know. There might not be enough people willing to test a new 1USD app from a hobbyist.

What difference does it make? Average app quality is surely a pointless metric given that people tend to spend their own money carefully (Or at least I do, I've spent £10 total on apps in my life)

Some people were up in arms about crap being pushed onto Steam, and it had no long term effect (Before or after anything was done about it)

gatekeeping can only last that long

The AppStore is a decade old, and the gate is holding strong. It’s likely that gate will exist for the rest of the iPhone’s product life, which hopefully ends within 20 years as smartphones are replaced by new technology.

What do you think is the split here though?

I’d say 90% better review and 10% the annual fee, personally. Not convinced it’s worth it.

The better review is only possible because the submission rate is lower.

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