The App Store wasn't made for the 1000 people with iMac Pros. It's made for millions of average Joes who just want to use their computer without having to worry about ransomware.
You are definitely not in that crowd, but most Mac users definitely are. Frankly, until the App Store came out, they were all terrified of installing anything on their computer without some well known brand attached to it (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Adobe).
The App Store has been a great way for Apple to turn a demographic who was traditionally scared of installing apps into a new market.
> So users have been trained to not use the App Store
Again, you and I have been trained. Most users crap their pants when they see anything happed contrary to the "blessed path."
Mac App Store is a fascinating topic! It seems to be a product nearly abandoned by Apple (not much improvement in years since the first release, unless you count sandboxing as one.) User experience is poor (takes seconds to load pages, also the HTML-based buttons need to be clicked multiple times and/or downloads get stuck). Abandonware/copies of copies of copies of "free PDF Reader"-type software from developers who re-publish 300+ apps of questionable quality abound.
Yes the App Store app is so broken and abandoned that it seems far more sketchy than downloading software from a website, which is quite an achievement!
what value is "safe" if your choices are all extremely limited in what they can do? And if you think you can't get malware past apple screening you're not thinking creatively enough.
You are definitely not in that crowd, but most Mac users definitely are. Frankly, until the App Store came out, they were all terrified of installing anything on their computer without some well known brand attached to it (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Adobe).
The App Store has been a great way for Apple to turn a demographic who was traditionally scared of installing apps into a new market.
> So users have been trained to not use the App Store
Again, you and I have been trained. Most users crap their pants when they see anything happed contrary to the "blessed path."