This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores).
Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam.
The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down.
The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alternative app stores or other methods of distributing software, Apple would be a lot more likely to take this problem more seriously"
Yet then says: "Apple isn’t the only company that struggles with this issue: They’re also on Google’s Play Store, which is available on its Android mobile operating system. But unlike Apple, Google doesn’t claim that its Play Store is curated."
...so lack of competing stores or presence of (imperfect) curation is not the cause, because Google did not even begin to attempt to solve this problem. Play store apps, unless proven otherwise, are generally malware you carry with yourself every day, with potential access to everything in your device because the OS is nowhere near locked down compared to Apple counterpart. Hell, most Android devices ship with undeletable malware from vendors etc.
Apple model is broken, but it is the least broken out there. Instead of admitting that, article tries to be a hit piece trying to make the Apple model look worse for the ongoing trial.