Not only that, but if you ever have the option of buying a software license directly from the developer or through the Mac App Store, you usually get much worse terms from the Mac App Store.
You'll pay the same price, but instead of getting a license you can run on unlimited of your own machines, or sometimes a fixed number like you can register it to 3 machines at a time, you can only install it on other computers that are managed by the same iCloud account. I've learned this the hard way with a bunch of productivity apps, if you want to use it on a personal machine and a work machine in the same way you can easily install all the free apps that you use on both machines, you're out of luck if you bought it on the Mac App Store. I've ended up re-buying a few different productivity tools over the years that I made the mistake of buying on the Mac App Store first, so that I actually had a portable license I could use that wasn't tightly coupled to making my personal text messages and iCloud files available on the same computer I want to use the license on. You also can't install mac app store apps via homebrew in a setup script or any kind of tooling you use to manage the computer (maybe this is getting better with shortcuts, but I'm not aware of a way to do it).
If it's a cross-platform app, you pay the same price but lose the ability to ever run it on Windows in the future if you buy it from the app store. If it's one of the few AAA games that support MacOS at all, if you buy on Steam you usually get a cross-platform license and there will often be a bunch of bundles that include extra DLC packs at a discounted price. Once a game is a few years old it will start going on sale all the time on Steam. The mac app store version usually won't go on the same sales and usually doesn't have any bundles available either.
If you have multiple user accounts created on a computer, you can't even upgrade a free app that a different user installed via the Mac App store, even if your user also has admin privileges. Only the same user that originally installed it can upgrade the app even though the app is available to every user on the machine.
There's really no reason to ever install anything from the Mac App Store, other than first-party Apple apps where you have no other choice (like XCode, Garage Band, Keynote, Final Cut, etc.)
And it’s such an incredibly good example of why anti-steering rules should be illegal. Apple basically refuses to let apps even tell the user that such alternate licenses are available!
I hate anti-steering so much that I hope any future legislation against it also enforces retroactive refunds for a significant period of time. Whatever money they have made is basically entirely due to pulling wool over users’ eyes, and they need to be losing millions from this as a punishment.
You'll pay the same price, but instead of getting a license you can run on unlimited of your own machines, or sometimes a fixed number like you can register it to 3 machines at a time, you can only install it on other computers that are managed by the same iCloud account. I've learned this the hard way with a bunch of productivity apps, if you want to use it on a personal machine and a work machine in the same way you can easily install all the free apps that you use on both machines, you're out of luck if you bought it on the Mac App Store. I've ended up re-buying a few different productivity tools over the years that I made the mistake of buying on the Mac App Store first, so that I actually had a portable license I could use that wasn't tightly coupled to making my personal text messages and iCloud files available on the same computer I want to use the license on. You also can't install mac app store apps via homebrew in a setup script or any kind of tooling you use to manage the computer (maybe this is getting better with shortcuts, but I'm not aware of a way to do it).
If it's a cross-platform app, you pay the same price but lose the ability to ever run it on Windows in the future if you buy it from the app store. If it's one of the few AAA games that support MacOS at all, if you buy on Steam you usually get a cross-platform license and there will often be a bunch of bundles that include extra DLC packs at a discounted price. Once a game is a few years old it will start going on sale all the time on Steam. The mac app store version usually won't go on the same sales and usually doesn't have any bundles available either.
If you have multiple user accounts created on a computer, you can't even upgrade a free app that a different user installed via the Mac App store, even if your user also has admin privileges. Only the same user that originally installed it can upgrade the app even though the app is available to every user on the machine.
There's really no reason to ever install anything from the Mac App Store, other than first-party Apple apps where you have no other choice (like XCode, Garage Band, Keynote, Final Cut, etc.)