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That's Really cool. Quite simple, has some of the good features of the Mac app store (aggregation, search, updates) and,seemingly none of the downfalls (bad ui, oppressive rules).
It doesn't have one-click, instant billing to 150 million subscribers... so that's kind of a big missing piece, there.

In the same way, a horse-drawn carriage has some of the good features of a 2011 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Coupe, like wheels, the freedom to move faster than walking without using much physical energy, and a storage compartment. It also has none of the environmental downfalls.

But, you know, it's kind of missing the internal combustion engine. (And we can argue about the UI – App Bodega's hardly a Prom Queen, itself.)

iTunes accounts are the magic dust Apple sprinkles to turn things into gold. No one else can touch it, save Amazon.

Of course, that is the major thing that it is lacking. Agreed that iTunes accounts are magic dust that nobody else can touch (not even Amazon). Also, it's not installed on just about every Mac on the planet, that's a big one too.
aka service i used once whose time has come and gone.

app has a history of killing of things like this. hypercard killed the serious potential of userland frontier and on and on. of course, microsoft killed still far more. tis is the way of the world of software...

HyperCard? In my recollection, this was an absolutely great piece of software -- and it's high time somebody produced something as good, but for modern userland development.
userland frontier was a a 4gl programming language, object database etc that was greatly damaged when apple released hypercard.
It's not just a river in egypt!
This is a great idea and the execution is just short of perfect. Two complaints: 1. The app icons load very slowly, I have to sit there for a minute sometime and wait for the placeholder icons to go away. The icon is the first impression users have with apps, they should always load first. If downloading little icons takes a long time, how's the bodega going to handle serving me a 100mb fart app? 2. The apps don't have the prices marked next to their icons on any of the main screens. Show me the money.

Yes I made a Jerry Maguire reference.

Surely the alternative is to sell it on your website like how Mac developers have ben doing for years?
Why should I use this instead of the Mac App store? (1st as a user, secondly as a developer)
As a developer I would assume you would use both, not this instead.
I applaud the effort, but when comes down to using it, I don't like it:

- Way too slow to load (all main screen icons in Bodega: 8s, Mac App Store: 1.1s)

- not a very good list view (name + big icons + price)

- detail view has too small screenshots

- even stranger navigation (back button on the bottom?).

The Bodega logo is a straight rip-off from the Fender logo.