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There's no shortage of apps of any kind in Apple's store as far as I can see. I would say the same is true of the Play store. There are some exclusives on each platform though, but nothing without competitor.

FWIW, I avoid free apps and apps with subscriptions as much as I can.

How many places are you going to restart this same well trod argument?

I wouldn’t say anything except this is twice you’ve brought this up out of the blue under one thread that I’ve seen and this isn’t even talking about the Apple ecosystem.

The structure of the ecosystem precludes some free apps from being listed for iOS. That structure seems to incentivize app makers to monetize, which could explain why people spend more on iOS apps.

Is the $100 fee really the difference and is it comparable with the man hours you would spend porting?

It's absolutely the fee. I can't see paying $100 every year just to let other people use my apps that's $1k over a decade!). If it were a one-time fee like Google, then I would have done it.