I agree that asking for reviews was a lot less common at the time (2012), but he actually says "asking for reviews ... wasn't something that came to the front of mind ... it felt dirty at the time". To me that reads like he was aware it was something apps were doing but he wasn't comfortable with it. So when the CEO of the company asked him "why aren't we higher rated in the app store?" he probably wished the answer was "they're cheating" instead of "because I feel it's unethical to ask for reviews".
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I agree that asking for reviews was a lot less common at the time (2012), but he actually says "asking for reviews ... wasn't something that came to the front of mind ... it felt dirty at the time". To me that reads like he was aware it was something apps were doing but he wasn't comfortable with it. So when the CEO of the company asked him "why aren't we higher rated in the app store?" he probably wished the answer was "they're cheating" instead of "because I feel it's unethical to ask for reviews".