[alexlin]

And marketing as a concept isn't?

Why aren't people rallying against Tapjoy when they're incentivizing people to download apps in exchange for virtual currency? As long as you pay $20-30k, you have enough downloads to breach the top 25.

Or take banner ads. Zynga has the ability to throw $100k IOs at random ad networks and their new apps are instantly in the Top 25 shortly after launch. Does this reflect popularity/quality or is it just a competition between who has the biggest wallet?

If Apple changed it's app store algorithm to function like the Android app store (that takes uninstall rates/ratings into account), this wouldn't be a problem.