Well, thank you for "oversimplifying it" But, the existence of a 3rd party app store, with "zero cost" to developers apparently, would almost certainly force someone in need of an app for some purpose to use this app store.

If I have a tool, lets say I buy a 'doorbell' camera. Right now, the "app" must be curated and qualified and verified clear of defects, malware, etc by App store policy and review. (not that they are 100%, but it's a pretty decent process).

When a 'free app store' shows up, then this same doorbell camera company will just pop their app, which will become a much shittier version of what would have been available, into some shitty app store, and, not bother to make a better version.

What will happen, in practice, is that there will be some percentage of apps that become shittier and only available from the shitty 3rd party store, and not the curated (and not free) app store.

So, no, it won't be a simple matter of just "don't use that store", there will be more factors at play.

I did. Perplexity updates daily. Better than "googling" these days. At least I attributed it. Don't like the stats, find better ones, or contradicting ones.