It doesn't cost anything or hurt to keep older versions available to download--versions that work on the older OS/API levels.
First, it affects my app ratings in the application store/shop. Some user with 15-year-old device gives me 1-star rating because of some annoying bug that was already fixed 10 years ago but he can not upgrade because that newer version is using a newer API.
Also, what about bugfixes and support? I do not want to have to support (answer emails/calls and deal with bad reviews on all platforms) my ancient version of an app. This would make my app unaffordable for 99% of my users.
good example of systemic failure - we are destroying a real thing (functionality) to optimise for a fictional thing (rating). There is plenty of old windows software with no support, I have a game that is old enough to drink and it still works and I still sometimes fire it up out of nostalgia.
There is no reason software cannot be like an old motorbike - a 40 year old Honda motorbike can still work, if that’s what the user wants.
Ratings are quite real. They influence if new people buy your app at all, which influences how viable it is as a business, which influences the app’s future, which influences current customers.
¹ At best it only measures those who rate and it can be gamed (true for every media).
² For the bad incentives you mention.
And it’s that I’m disagreeing with. I’m sure you’re capable of understanding that too. Words matter. By being against something and calling it fake or fictional, you’re doing more harm to your cause than by recognising the impact it has on the real world and those who inhabit it.
The OP meant that the app ratings aren’t a measure of a tangible quality or effect. Like “heat,” or “number of tickets.” The unit of measure and what it means is “fictional,” in the sense that the scale and units are completely made up and arbitrary.
They’re not saying that it’s fictional in the sense that it doesn’t exist or isn’t real.
They’re aptly noting that by forcing developers to optimize for this rating system, app stores are incentivizing developers to support only the most recent OS releases and deprecate support for older devices.
The ratings have real consequences.
A typical app depends on both OS APIs and remote service APIs.
Keeping the latter stable and supported is harder. Especially when there are third party services and frameworks involved, which there inevitably are.
And whereas no-longer-fixable bugs in an app might be work-aroundable, merely annoying, or outright irrelevant to some use cases, bugs in a service/framework can easily be security stuff that can take down your whole business or land you in regulatory hot water.