Tens of hundreds of Innovator-category developers will build surprising, delightful apps for the hundreds of thousands of Innovator-category Vision Pro first-year buyers.

Early-Adopter-category developers and buyers will wait to see what the Innovators discover.

Did they say thriving? They will be the initial foray. There will be enough of a market for early creators (like Apple TV which had small numbers) but reduced competition. The early creators will have some return, reputation and experience to carry through for when the audience grows.

It won't be the opening of floodgates, but I think it will be interesting enough.

A well established dynamic in business is the “flywheel” or “virtuous cycle”. Yes, there is a chicken and egg problem here. That doesn’t in any way make it impossible to get the flywheel going. You just need to invest time, money, and energy to support/subsidize each part of the cycle.

The hardware is probably being sold near to cost, thus speeding up that side of the adoption cycle. And courting developers will allow them to build up the app ecosystem.