From my POV, it's like complaining that the seat belt left a bruise after an automotive collision; IOW, missing the bigger picture. I can sort my own garbage, thanks (and that's not to say that you're not right about the quality in app stores). It's easy, and if I screw it up then I've just got a garbage binary taking up space that is otherwise harmless.

But what I grow increasingly tired of is wondering if bad actors have found new ways to make my life difficult before I install that random app. Download from an app store, the app might be garbage, but at least I can be confident that it won't trash my machine. Servers, my dev machine? Sure, I'm willing to put up with a little more rigamorole for more control, etc. But my phone? I don't want to put up with that crap, vetting everything binary that goes on the box. I just want to tap and download, and if the quality of the app sucks, then fixing that is a long-press away.