The issue is paying $99 to even be allowed to think about making an app - plus the arbitrary requirement it must be built using a Mac.
Not all apps are commercial, and not all apps generate revenue, and not all apps are even on the App Store!
It's just an absurd requirement. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?
This is also false:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
I say "also" because you were also wrong about the Apple Developer Program: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36235313
How is it nit picky when you were using the nonexistent $25 listing fee as part of an argument? "$25 per listed app - removing the "anti-spam" argument some are making."
And in the case of Android you might not get the app in the search results because Google decided your phone is not compatible, in which case the Play Store will pretend the app doesn't exist. To this day I don't understand this stupid design, it confuses the hell out of users who don't know this obscure detail, sometimes even misleads them by installing another app that showed up instead of the correct one.