It also keeps me from developing some niche app to scratch an itch and share that with the world for free. Sure, I can always just release the code on Github and let people compile it themselves, but unless the app is for developers who own Apple computers, very few are probably going to take advantage of that. I'm certainly not going to pay $99/yr to publish that app, but I might if there were no fee. That said, maybe that app would fall into your "hello world" category and shouldn't be published anyway.
Related: Quite some time ago [Edit: OMG it was 10 years ago!] I had a game on the App Store that I stopped updating and pulled because the $99 fee wasn't covered by the low number of downloads. Many people were still playing the game at the time, but I just couldn't justify the cost.
I pay more than $99 a year for my own personal Resharper license. I can’t think of a single hobby I have or have thought about having that wouldn’t cost more per year.
Related: Quite some time ago [Edit: OMG it was 10 years ago!] I had a game on the App Store that I stopped updating and pulled because the $99 fee wasn't covered by the low number of downloads. Many people were still playing the game at the time, but I just couldn't justify the cost.