Did Apple close the 24kpwn exploit in the latest shipments of the iPhone 3GS due to app piracy? MobileCrunch thinks it’s certainly a factor:

While jailbreaking allows for countless wonderful (but otherwise disallowed) apps to run on the iPhone, it also allows cracked versions of paid applications to be installed. As a result, piracy is mind-blowingly, soul-crushingly rampant on the iPhone. Many iPhone developers – such as those behind the popular IM client, Beejive – are reporting that 80 percent of their users are pirates. Yep. For every 10 users on Beejive, 8 of them didn’t pay for it. I’m no saint myself, and all of us here fully understand that a download does not equal a lost sale – but when 80% of the people using your app (and in Beejive’s case, your servers) aren’t paying to keep the lights on, it’s likely seen as a big issue.

As Jeremy posted yesterday, Apple has begun shipping iPhone 3GS with new boot ROMs patched against the longstanding 24kpwn exploit commonly used to Jailbreak the devices. We also saw some reports on the state of app piracy from Pinch Media.

What do you think? Would Apple turn a blinder eye towards Jailbreaking if app piracy wasn’t a factor? Or is Apple duty bound to patch known security exploits no matter what?