[saidajigumi]

This is a big part of why, as an app user, I'm pretty unhappy with Apple's long-running string of decisions to effectively bottleneck app discovery to the App Store. It just doesn't matter how good the App Store is, it cannot possibly scale to embody the diversity of interests that is today's mobile app ecosystem.

Most recently, there was the decision to discontinue the affiliate referral program. Perhaps this was not "moving the numbers" significantly from Apple's perspective, but it did severely impact some sites that were great at covering domain-specific app niches in detail. And unlike Apple's in-house editorial, these were sites with writers with actual names meaning you can track their 1) quality of writing and 2) how the writer's individual preferences mesh with your own over time.

Related to that, Apple went on a bit of a "buying spree" from the independent Apple journalist community and the bylines of some writers I really liked just ... vanished. They're still out there, still writing, but part of the faceless Clone Army of Apple editorial. :-( So I'm glad those folks have stable jobs, but I'm mad at Apple for undermining good, independent tech journalism.

Going back further, to the misty dawn of the App Store, there's Apple's long-standing blockade on any app that functions like the App Store, i.e. curated app editorial. This essentially shut down another first-class (here, meaning "app") venue for app-centric selection.