AppGratis's response[1] to this new development (and the repeated allegations of gaming the App Store) is weird and full of double-speak.

> Allow me to jump right into this by saying that yes, we have created a business while solving a problem.

> And that last time we checked, it was still OK to do that.

Double-speak: "solving a problem" wasn't why AppGratis was banned: if "solving a problem" was a bannable offense, every app would be banned. No, it was banned for a specific "solution" to a very specific "problem": providing pay-to-play access to their install base in order to game the ostensibly organic rankings of the App Store.

Under the section that promises to explain why AppGratis's business model is fair, you'd expect it to be about that, but it's not: instead, it's a short biography of the founder, a recap of all the money they raised, and this curious statement:

> And this is how we helped and are still helping – for free – hundreds of indie devs with great apps to get well-deserved visibility. In the past few days, many of them have stood up for us – and many haven’t, probably in fear that Apple will stop featuring their app if they speak. I make no judgement of this. I thank the former, and fully understand what motivates (or doesn’t) the later.

So everyone believes AppGratis is good, and the people who actively state otherwise are only doing so under threat from Apple? That's begging the question on a grand scale.

Under the "Where's the money coming from?" section, they go into great detail about how AppGratis was accepting money from people with big marketing budgets to feature their applications on a CPI basis— something they admit Apple banned—and how the companies were using this to game the App Store:

> And to guide them through their complicated media buying, we’d send them – with no guarantees whatsoever – a spreadsheet that indicates the forecasts of installs we thought we’d be a able to drive for their app in each country. Since the App Store algorithm relies mostly on download velocity, it’s simple math to buy your way to the top of the charts by purchasing the numbers of installs you need combining multiple vendors.

Yet they immediately deny that they were gaming the App Store. Their entire business model, as described by them, was built upon facilitating app store gaming. The hair they're splitting here is that they are not providing an explicit statement of guarantee regarding placement in Apple's App Store rankings. Yet that's the entire value of AppGratis to potential buyers and what a CPI business model would result in, leading to the same end result: buying placement on AppGratis guarantees better rankings in Apple's App Store.

Finally:

> We have always based our business on solving the App Discovery needs that consumers have.

and

> We then surveyed our community: “Folks, happy with this new type of deals?” Answer: “Yes”. Status: OK. Carry on, AppGratis.

are both double-speak: their consumers and community are the companies that buy placement in AppGratis, not the people downloading the app (much less the people who are relying on Apple's App Store rankings). Of course they're happy with AppGratis: they wouldn't be paying them otherwise.

AppGratis had a fairly sympathetic narrative handed to them: mean old Apple, who has a history of ostensibly capricious and arbitrary decisions regarding their app store, banned an app that had 12 million installs. Blog posts like the ones they've been posting that at best sidestep the issues raised, or at worst confirm them, do them no favors.

[1]: http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things-straight...