[beeflaw]

It's a good way to not get developers on board. Yes, you can easily develop for iOS/Android and as a result the respective stores are drowned in crap. Merely publishing on there will give you zero visibility. On curated platforms, there's the benefit of being a big fish in a small pond.

[indymike]

This is what Apple did in the beginning, too. I felt as you did about it at the time. Six months later things opened up and the rest is history.

[beeflaw]

Apple didn't start out with a curated store, they started out with "open" HTML5 apps that couldn't do shit.

Today, Apple barely can do quality control on the iOS store, Google essentially doesn't bother, why should a small shop deal with the issue right off the bat?