"That's the closest thing I can find to a "confirmation" that AppGratis was accepting cash in exchange for a higher rank in their app."
This is the core of their business model. I think a better way to explain is more like Groupon for Apps. You get access to their 12M members, but in exchange, you agree to 1) set your app to free for a day or discount heavily for a day and 2) pay AppGratis for the promotion opportunity.
In terms of whether this is "black hat" or not, I think it's not really black hat. It obviously has the same effect as buying a bunch of paid installs via CPI networks, you just get a lot more velocity given the large audience that AppGratis has access to.
In terms of business model justification, you can defend them on the basis that they do the work of finding app developers who make quality apps (note that most of the apps they promote have high ratings) that may not currently be marketed well and they convince them to make it free for one day only. Users love free stuff and obviously based on their downloads and growth, people found a lot of value in the service. The fact that the side benefit of being featured is that you skyrocket in the app store rankings is not AppGratis's fault, that's something Apple can account for in the app store ranking algorithms if they want to (it's their garden after all). This would be no different than an Amazon Gold Box offer that discounts something heavily and that product rises to the top of the "Bestsellers" list for a limited time.
This is the core of their business model. I think a better way to explain is more like Groupon for Apps. You get access to their 12M members, but in exchange, you agree to 1) set your app to free for a day or discount heavily for a day and 2) pay AppGratis for the promotion opportunity.
In terms of whether this is "black hat" or not, I think it's not really black hat. It obviously has the same effect as buying a bunch of paid installs via CPI networks, you just get a lot more velocity given the large audience that AppGratis has access to.
In terms of business model justification, you can defend them on the basis that they do the work of finding app developers who make quality apps (note that most of the apps they promote have high ratings) that may not currently be marketed well and they convince them to make it free for one day only. Users love free stuff and obviously based on their downloads and growth, people found a lot of value in the service. The fact that the side benefit of being featured is that you skyrocket in the app store rankings is not AppGratis's fault, that's something Apple can account for in the app store ranking algorithms if they want to (it's their garden after all). This would be no different than an Amazon Gold Box offer that discounts something heavily and that product rises to the top of the "Bestsellers" list for a limited time.