> It's to keep spammers out.

Doesn't seem to be working. Have you seen the App Store? You can buy 'antivirus' apps with $79.99 weekly subscriptions. On a sandboxed platform where you can't "scan" anything but yourself.

Also -- it's not that hard to make $143 in scam sales, which will pay for that $99 account.

I actually would rather the developer program fee was $2,000 if it meant it actually was harder for scammers to get in. Of course, it should be free to make apps for my own phone, and to distribute it to those in my family group.