I’ll give credit to Apple for formally writing a policy to this extent, but it’s disappointing. There’s always the risk of putting in a lot of time for an app that is genuinely unique but Apple may not think so.

I’d much rather Apple let in junk apps but do more to promote curated lists of good apps. I like the “Editors Choice” section. I think it is generally a step in the right direction to surface decent apps.

Plus there’s also already some kind of precedent: Maps does an acceptable job promoting third-party “Guides” to attractions and food for many cities.

For what it's worth, that bit of the policy was written early in the life of the App Store, when there really was a glut of low-effort novelty apps, particularly in the categories they mentioned, and when app discovery features in the store were more limited. It's probably not as necessary nowadays, but it does help guide developers away from writing apps which users are unlikely to find useful. (And if you've genuinely put in the effort to create something novel, it shouldn't be difficult to convince the reviewer of that - App Store review is a two-way street.)

Don't you mean ocean into which you can throw your message in a bottle and occasionally get a response to? ◝ ( ⁰ ▿ ⁰ ) ◜