It's a way to clear out old apps that don't make money. A freeware app can be quite popular but won’t get updated if the developer as moved on to other jobs and

It's a way to clear out old apps that don't make money. A freeware app can be quite popular but won’t get updated if the developer as moved on to other jobs and can't continue to devote unpaid labor toward their passion project. In order to afford to keep maintaining it, they may have to move a happily free app toward a subscription or ad-supported model. And Apple's forced updates are nudging people in that direction. It reminds me of a class I once took where the professor stated that some colonial governments would go into tribal areas, claim land ownership, and start taxing the indigenous people. And because these people now owed taxes, they had to give up their lifestyle, enter the workforce, and participate in the money economy whether they wanted to or not. I don't know if that scenario is historically accurate but it certainly is analogous to Apple's policy. Developers who might not even want to make money are being compelled to do so or see their apps get pulled, because forced updates amount to a tax that must be paid.