I can see how this would elicit quite a negative response, but getting an app onto the App Store requires non-trivial fees. Even just code-signing an app requires money that could be better spent otherwise. This money would have had to have come from somewhere, and I don't think 9 euros is unreasonable.
The strength of projects like LibreOffice is not that they are monetarily free (Google Docs exists), but that the source code is open.
The strength of projects like LibreOffice is not that they are monetarily free (Google Docs exists), but that the source code is open.