[snowflakeandrey]

A 501(c)(3) application costs at least $275 and takes 2-12 months to process. That seems all right if you're a SV SWE registering something on the side of your regular 6 figure income, but for a lot of folks around the world, that seems a largely no-go way to support their project.

If this is really an attempt at preventing garbage apps from spamming or tricking users, this is both overly broad (many false positives) and badly targeted (many false negatives). Why is it that iOS doesn't have this policy, and has significantly fewer garbage apps?

Maybe if Google were to allow third party app stores, folks could choose the one that fits their ability to evaluate the sophistication of apps themselves. For example, some folks might want to pay for extra security checks on the apps they use, while others want to install anything and everything under the sun.