[dperfect]

A good point about utility/accessibility apps. For most everything else though, I prefer not to inherently grant all those permissions to every app I install.

But again, Apple doesn't require distribution through the MAS (even if the majority of apps can work effectively within the restrictions), so how does the MAS's existence make the OS X ecosystem worse off overall?

If Apple is ignorant enough to leave money on the table by failing to provide a good marketplace/environment for a large number of apps (as may very well be the case), then non-MAS distribution will still flourish. Maybe they'll wise up and improve the situation in response. Maybe not, and we're back to the way things were before the MAS.

[pkamb]

It's not the existence of the Mac App Store that hurts, it's the existance of this (theoretically) great marketplace that we can't use to distribute normal, useful OS X apps. Especially if you had a great little app going in the MAS, and now can't update it because it can't be sandboxed.

And hosting, key generation, payments, etc. are a fairly significant roadblock to shipping an app that the MAS formerly allowed you to completely ignore.