Hmm, yes, automatic, convenient. That's always how it starts. It's just as convenient for me go to MacUpdate or PureMac or a developer's web site. There are many reasons to avoid the App store.
I'm plenty unhappy about the existing ways Apple keeps me tethered to the mothership and fiddles with my computer without my knowledge. Privacy is gone. Private property and the ability to repair your own products are next in line. It's as though after Steve Jobs died, his psychotic characteristics remained in the company, but none of the good ones.
The App store has a lot of problems. There aren't many programs. They are poorly organized and poorly described. Free programs are often not free. It's a pain to navigate. I use tabs all the time in Firefox, but of course you can't do that on the App store, forcing you to do a lot of back and forth. I dislike the App store installing programs on my computer. I can do it. I don't need the App store to take over a simple task. There are problems with functionality; programs downloaded from the developer are sometimes better than the App Store versions. I'm not going to address the larger problem of how developers are treated. And I have to sign into the App Store every time. Twice. What a pain. Apple and their dumb ID problems. I can't use the App Store with 1Password the way I do other web sites because it's not a web page, it's a separate program.
Wherever I turn in the Apple world, my freedom is being diminished. It would be easier to accept if there were some positive gain in return. But there isn't. It seems to get worse every week.
All those years I wanted Apple to do well was because I liked the products and wanted them to get better. I had no feelings for or attachment to the company otherwise. Now Apple is at the top of...something...but Macs and the macOS have been abused and neglected. The only credo these people live by appears to be, Let's do what we can get away with until the money runs out.
