I made a Chrome extension called Not Now that helps with this: https://seferdesign.com/not-now/

Here in Chicago, regular cab drivers ask the route question all the time. I've read that this is asked in hopes you tell them a non-optimal route that takes longer. My response is almost always "the fastest way is fine."

I think the $5.00 is to deter the average user from seeing a free App made by Apple and downloading it, eating up significant bandwidth

Then why not offer the download for free on developer.apple.com and charge the 5 dollars for the convenience of using the Mac App Store?

...and then calling the support lines asking "why is my disk full?"