It's perhaps worth steelmanning the argument here - though technically one can release an app for free, it is generally the case that any app with significant investment (warranting monetization) will take one of the two paths he described, and this describes the majority of popular apps.

I think the larger context is that you need to pay a fee to upload an app and have it reviewed. If you don't want to shoulder the cost you need to reimburse yourself through advertising income if you want to have it available for free for yourself and your customers.

So I don't believe this is a harrowing mistake...