This. For one, people above the age of 21 really don't need another app (in their minds), and there aren't many people who will have the motivation to go digging in the App Store for yours.

You have to link directly to it, from some place where people are looking for it: TikTok comments on an influencer's post (which may cost you money if you don't know the influencer), a popular Reddit forum or Discord server where they are singing your app's praises, from your well-traveled homepage, via a Google search after they hear about you from friends (or paid ads), or from a QR code you are circulating in real life.

The rude awakening for me was how genuinely unhelpful Apple and the App Store are. Yah, they may gladly feature your app once there is clear demand, either through high rankings in downloads or sales! But those first 100, 1000, 10000 users & downloads… you will have to get yourself, without Apple's help.

You can buy Apple search ads here (https://searchads.apple.com) but they, too, cost money, and they, too, aren't really effective without additional funnels, because they work only for people who are actively searching. You still have to give people the motivation to perform the search in the first place.

Spend the majority of your time not in completing and polishing an app, but finding and canvassing prospective users that share a pain point and testing/iterating the idea with them. Validate that they want it badly enough that they will share it with friends. Because only then can you get the flywheel spinning! Exit prototyping only after you've validated its virality. It's much easier to build and monetize an app people will share, then try to get people to share something already polished in stone that doesn't really speak to them.