Comment by WorldMaker
8 years ago
I recall they announced promotions like that as well. At one point I recall they would auto-cut at least in half for some amount of time if your app was chosen for the front page of the Store.
Since the Anniversary Update last year, sideloading has been enabled by default, too, if you wanted to sell apps outside the store, and that didn't magically attract indies either.
Sideloading is a thing on Android too, but it really doesn't attract a lot of devs or users. Most users stick to the stores, cause they don't want to go chase down and give their payment info to infinity different sites.