>The $99/year isn't preventing junk from showing up on the AppStore
It's not "preventing junk from showing up on the AppStore", but it does prevent "a whola lot more of junk from showing up on the AppStore"
>and a lack of $99/year payments doesn't make the Google Play stor a dumpster fire of garbage apps
You'd be surprised. Google Play store is notoriously more insecure and loaded with junk, with estimates that close to 90% of mobile spy/malware are on Android rather than iOS.
"According to the whitepaper, Android devices were responsible for 47.15% of the observed malware infections, Windows/ PCs for 35.82%, IoT for 16.17% and iPhones for less than 1%" (Panda Security)
"Over 98% of mobile banking attacks target Android devices"
The AppStore is currently filled with low-value junk published by people paying $99/year (1.8 million apps out there, of which most outside of the top X lists are terrible). Will hobby apps really decrease the average quality? I highly doubt it.
[1] I'll admit that this appeared to be the trend early on, but in the long term both platforms have converged to something similar.