Bitchat – A decentralized messaging app that works over Bluetooth mesh networks

There was a version of Apple at a point in time where I agree with your rhetoric. They have completely lost credibility to uphold that position IMO.

Apple definitely does not spend billions guaranteeing "quality". To prove my point, where does Apple even define what they consider "quality"? How can you quantify such an aubjecrive and ambiguous term?

They spend billions paying out the 70% they don't pocket.

Heck, They don't even adhere to their own HIG nor let us revert to past (objectively higher quality) versions of iOS.

I'm not saying Apple doesn't profit from it, but they're not just pocketing every penny.

As for "quality", they mostly check that your app isn't using unauthorized APIs, or doing other scetchy stuff, like leeching all of your data. They couldn't care less if your app is bad, thats' between you and your potential users.

Does it work ? apparently so. Apple catches around 2 million apps every year that are rejected for those reasons. Android has about the same amount of apps, but there they're caught by Kaspersky (and others) after they're published.

That doesn't mean that malware isn't making its way through the App Store review, the damage will be somewhat limited if it can't use private APIs.

I should add that here in the EU, where we’ve had 3rd party app stores for over a year, nobody uses them. The absolutely biggest one, Epic Games, has attracted about 29 million users across both iOS and Android, out of a population of 450 million.

That's a runtime feature, it has nothing to do with the App Store.