Apple's app store is the best app store that I've ever seen. Please point me to a better one?

I'll bite, show me an example of a "well curated" app store to your standards.

F-Droid is right there. They're niche, but that further underscores that even a group of open source volunteers can maintain a well-curated app store.

Comparing apples to pomegranate seeds, surely. But perhaps that's the point. If third party app stores were allowed, they needn't all be shoddy wannabe Apple App Stores run by rival tech giants trying to publish as many apps willy-nilly to cut into Apple's market. Instead, perhaps there could be many boutique curated app stores, some non-profit even, that aim to cater to specific user experiences.

The benefit is that it could be a solution for the app discovery issues that currently come from having a single App Store with a single search interface. Users with specialized interests or needs can subscribe to smaller third party app stores as they see fit. There would be competition in app discovery. More customization in user experiences. Variety in editorial control.

It's a bit akin to reversing the current state of the web where giant closed sites such as Facebook or Google are single-entry points, and going back to the past where there were web communities and webrings. A Neocities for apps would be neat.

I think Steam and GOG are examples of well curated (specialized) app stores. I searched a bit and it seems there have only ever been a small handful of reports of Steam accidentally allowing malware to be distributed with a game ("Abstractism" is the only one I found, that had apparently had a crypto miner embedded).

To be fair, Steam also was collecting 30% fees (I believe they have reduced recently, mostly because of pressure from Epic), so from this point of view it's not better than Apple.