My anecdotal experience has been that the macOS App Store is a popular distribution platform with developers. As a user, I don't use it because I don't want to

My anecdotal experience has been that the macOS App Store is a popular distribution platform with developers. As a user, I don't use it because I don't want to give Apple more information about me, and I will regularly find Mac apps online that don't have a download/purchase link -- they just point to the app store. It's at least popular enough with devs that avoiding it as a user is a pain.