There is no free lunch. Even if you aren’t paying for apps, you are still paying for them. Even FOSS apps, your share is just being paid for by the kindness of the developers or other community members who donate to fund development.
Okay but the article is talking about actual purchases of individual apps in the app store and the effect of that pricing, which surprised me as I dont know a single person that has purchased an individual app.
Do you generally ask everyone you know about their app buying choices? How many people do you know? How up to date is this data? Does it include in-app purchases?