> Not “that would be ethically abhorrent”, or even “that would be wrong”, instead “if we did this it would cost me a lot of money to fraudulently boost my ratings”.

Of course I think it's wrong and ethically abhorrent. Sigh.

In the very same paragraph I use the phrase "unscrupulous App Store developers" when referring to purchasing fake reviews.

I said "Developers could", referring impersonally to developers, but you rephrased it using the words "we" and "me", words that I did not use. You're insisting on assuming the worst of me, for no apparent reason.

My point there was directed more toward readers of App Store reviews. That is, reviews of upfront paid apps, especially higher price upfront paid apps, are less likely to be fake than reviews of free-to-download apps. The question that began the paragraph was, "Should you even trust anonymous crowdsourced ratings and reviews?" That was the context.

It's really a mystery to me how you came up with this bizarre interpretation of my words. If I were a wannabe App Store fraudster, why in the world would I be openly blogging about it? And why would I stubbornly stick with the upfront paid business model when I state in the blog post that the financial incentives favor free with IAP, and moreover that it's easier to commit review fraud with the IAP model?