I think it's a reasonable argument, but it's perhaps not stated as well as it could be. It's a response to the (presumed) justification from Apple that they wa

I think it's a reasonable argument, but it's perhaps not stated as well as it could be. It's a response to the (presumed) justification from Apple that they want to do this because cross-compiled applications are often low-quality. So the argument is that if Apple wanted to weed low-quality applications out of the app store, then they should do that based on the quality of the applications, rather than based on the implementation techniques. Clearly, though, the fact that the app store is already flooded with low-quality applications is indicative of the fact that Apple hasn't been doing that, which makes that justification seem totally bogus: if they really cared about low-quality applications, they could have done something about it long ago without restricting cross-compilation techniques. And if they wanted to put a stop to it now, they could still do it without restricting cross-compilation. So to extend your analogy: if you want to weed the garden, then pull the weeds already. No need to have this strange level of indirection that will result in removing only a small number of the weeds while also eliminating plenty of flowers.