I wouldn’t entirely agree, it’s shit because Google and Apple enable the practice by providing app Advertising frameworks and fighting back against people working against those systems (i.e. mobile ad blocking and app firewalls, either through store policy or public discouragement).

Developers are incentivised because advertising both:

1. Gives reoccurring revenue, beyond what a purchase would give.
2. It makes people more likely to pick them up since people easily pick things up that are cheap or even free.

Advertising basically takes away the need to sell stuff and allows poaching revenue from people even if they don’t want to support the app. I’ve known many Devs who will try to eek out more revenue by click fraud (auto clicking their own ads).

So I’m not really a fan of implying this is our fault or “devs gotta eat too”. This practice is very much corporate greed.