Well, it is a fake problem. There's nothing preventing a developer from hosting a binary on a server and sending the download link to a potential reviewer or user, other than the simple matter of implementing license checks and demo timeouts. It's the same now as it was 20 years ago.
It's telling that many App Store developers, even very successful ones, no longer bother with that crap. It's just so much easier for both the developer and user to send out a promo code in an email.
well, what might be considered "simple" is not entirely simple. sure, i could send out the packages to anyone, provisioned locally. sure.
but... doing a demo with license checks really, really, really well...? that takes time, care, and impact user-experience.
i decided that i didn't have time (yet) to implement a really kick-ass demo / trial version... but in the future i'd like to take a serious look at it.
context is important: as an indie developer i only have so much (so little) time to invest... i have to really carefully choose my battles of where i spend that time... and that's really the hardest part of it all.
It's telling that many App Store developers, even very successful ones, no longer bother with that crap. It's just so much easier for both the developer and user to send out a promo code in an email.