[withinboredom]

The main issue is that there isn't any governance to the plugin store. Once you have a plugin in there, you have free reign to do whatever you want with it. Getting it in there is a PITA though. For example, a library author and I created a plugin, but they wouldn't let me submit it because I wasn't the other author, and they wouldn't let him submit it because he wasn't me. True story.

[kassner]

TBF there is some scrutiny on existing plugins, the team is just extremely understaffed (it’s ran by volunteers after all). I got involved in a plugin that ended up getting de-listed for some minor ToS violations after several years of being “fine”, they re-reviewed the plugin with the same rigor as a new submission.

[chuckadams]

Kudos to these volunteers, but as long as one single company continues to insist on owning all the resources of the plugin and theme directories, I don't think they deserve to continue profiting from volunteer labor.

[kassner]

Agreed. My experience was pre-Matt drama, and even then the boundary between wp.org and Automattic was quite unclear.

[RobotToaster]

There's also the fact that Matt Mullenweg (the guy who owns automattic) has made hostile takeovers of plugin pages before