[eridius]

It is a built-in part of the App Store. But the app store is so crowded that once you fall off the front page, there's not much you can do within the store (besides hope that Apple decides to feature you after some big update). The reason why search ads are actually good for customers is because it promotes apps that are backed by companies that a) still care about their app, and b) can afford to actually promote the app. This means the app is much more likely to be under active development and to be usable in the future. And surely any company that's interested in search ads is already purchasing ads on web search engines and whatnot, so it really shouldn't be a big deal.

[the_common_man]

This is poor logic. Promoting has nothing to do with how well supported the app is. All we will see is people with money push their apps and trying to make up for that money at the cost of the customer.

[joemi]

> Promoting has nothing to do with how well supported the app is.

I think it could, to a certain extent. If someone stops supporting an app, I think there's a decent chance they wouldn't both paying money to promote it. At least for the kind of throw-away crap apps that are out there.