Making whatever you want may be your prerogative, but it’s Apple’s job and responsibility to maintain store quality and integrity.

No one — not Apple, not legitimate developers, and definitely not users — would benefit from an App Store laden with knockoffs, ripoffs, and cheap copies or from thousands of identically named/themed/styled apps stuffed with ads, trackers, and malware.

One might as well be on Android… ;)

To pick one example, it might be your “prerogative” to write a book on any subject you desire, but it’s up to a given publisher to decide whether or not to publish that book, or to decide if, perhaps, it’s too similar to other products in the market and refuse to carry it. It’s their publishing house, after all

Similarly, you can manufacture any product you want, but you’re not guaranteed to get it on the shelves at WalMart or Target or Best Buy. They too, set their own standards for acceptance and do what they consider to be best to protect their stores, their brand, and their customers.

Apple does the same.

Ultimately, it’s you and you alone that decided to waste your time on that particular application, with full knowledge of the fact that Apple frowns on application knockoffs and copies and that they’ve stated that certain apps are no longer welcome on the store.

In fact, they explicitly stated, back in 2014, that “Flappy Bird” knockoffs would no longer be accepted. Period.

And if you’re going to pretend that you didn’t know any of that beforehand, then that’s pretty much your own fault as well, as it’s not Apple’s job to do your product research for you.

So, no, Apple’s guidelines in this area are NOT arbitrary. Nor are they the evil mega corporation that — unfairly and unjustly — decided not to let you play (and pee) in their pool.