Instead of paying per app, would make more sense to let devs keep 90% of store revenue, which would incentivize the development of apps that are actually popular and make money.
It was a slight eye opener for me as a student at the time getting near graduation. The part of the workshop going through the app submittal and approval process was actually really interesting, but when it became clear that the bigger effort was to boost app numbers in the store things felt really dirty.
Either way that experience always comes up for me whenever people talk about the low quality of apps on the Windows store.
They tried that too. The Verge reported in 2013 that Microsoft was paying some developers $100,000 each to port their apps to Windows Mobile. The article hints that was how Pandora & Temple Run ended up on Windows Mobile.
That certainly wasn't the only program. MSFT paid cost for my mobile dev company to port games, because we had an established brand on iOS/Android. $100 for whatever random college students come up with seems very reasonable.
Ah, yes. $100 per app. I'm sure that's what most apps cost to produce. /s
It seems like they did a few things, but never actually, you know, paid app developers to build out their ecosystem.