Or, like the point I believe the author was trying to make, it's not ridiculous if it aids in your long term business goals.
The quality of Apple's App Store is one of the key differentiators in the smartphone/tablet market. In-app purchase based software can reasonably be seen to reduce the quality of an app-store for a couple reasons.
1) The low barrier to entry puts f2p software at an initial advantage. This hurts the market for complete software.
2) Competition for profits then becomes based on extracting the most money from users in hard to quantify ways, leading to insidious tricks.
3) Consumers become disenfranchised with the idea of an app, after they become burned a couple times, and trying to look for quality complete software, but finding that it has failed to thrive in the face of free+ alternatives.
Remember that old Columbia Records CD-by-mail thing? It made money because it offered a low initial cost that a kid could sign up for. Then CDs were sent monthly, and eventually a big bill would follow. Can you imagine a quality music discovery service competing with the free one that spammed kids and then left their parents to foot the bill? I suggest no. First, the up-front, honest service would require a reasoned commitment, while Columbia's appealed directly to people's instincts. Second, Columbia poisoned the water. No one could trust the technology of the day (catalogues and mail) to be beneficial after they were hit with a huge surprise bill from the big name in the industry.
I'm not saying that is a perfect analogy, but I think it reasonably fits. The difference here is that Apple is in full control of their destiny- and they can't afford to let things go to shit.