while this smacks of other "rackets" like SSL certificates (especially when they used to cost hundreds of dollars and verification was dubious at best), this isn't that outlandish of a practice -- think MSDN subscriptions, apple developer network subscriptions, etc.

generating cash probably isn't the motive here -- rather it's putting a $375 hurdle in front of an app developer so that they only have to deal with reasonably serious verification requests.

(put another way, when you raise $500mm, and have a $15bn valuation, $10mm yearly revenue -- and that's assuming half of all app developers convert, which is extremely unlikely given that most have probably moved on -- is a drop in the bucket.)

if the $375 is really a pain for devs, they could probably come up with some non-cash hurdle (i.e. something that is just annoying/takes time, like an essay or a petition or something equally inane that's a pain to do but trivial to verify) for the cash-strapped