This is a good argument for having multiple app stores. I don't totally blame Apple's devs here: it's completely imaginable that small, innocent changes in what's no doubt an enormous codebase could have totally unpredictable effects on individual search rankings.
The problem is that there's only a single point of articulation. If half a dozen app stores all got search results "mostly right", then little variations like this wouldn't sink a business. This is far from the only example of the single-platform effect. Facebook gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of free speech. YouTube gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of copyright claims. In the world of PC games, for contrast, Steam's algorithms can't totally sink a game because they don't have a total monopoly. There's itch.io, GOG, and now Epic. You can go to other platforms (or all of them!).
I love Apple's app store. I love how hard they fight to protect their customers from exploitative and dangerous software. I feel safe downloading apps there in a way that I didn't on Google Play. But monopolies are bad, even in the rare cases where they don't degrade the quality of the product.
The problem is that there's only a single point of articulation. If half a dozen app stores all got search results "mostly right", then little variations like this wouldn't sink a business. This is far from the only example of the single-platform effect. Facebook gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of free speech. YouTube gets (or is forced) to be the arbiter of copyright claims. In the world of PC games, for contrast, Steam's algorithms can't totally sink a game because they don't have a total monopoly. There's itch.io, GOG, and now Epic. You can go to other platforms (or all of them!).
I love Apple's app store. I love how hard they fight to protect their customers from exploitative and dangerous software. I feel safe downloading apps there in a way that I didn't on Google Play. But monopolies are bad, even in the rare cases where they don't degrade the quality of the product.