Give my own app on the app store away for free to specific customers ?

AFAIK, it is not possible. How would you define those persons for the AppStore ? And that would be a way to evade the fees.

What you can do is give them access through TestFlight, but that lasts only 90 days.

One of those users now would like to review my app on the app store, but, naturally, he wouldn't want to buy it on the app store, since his free copy works fine.

• As we say, you cannot have your cake and eat it too 😃.
• But you can refund him on your own money, if yoou want.

OK, thanks a lot for your comments. How I would identify them is easy: if they write me an email, and I think they are one of the beta testers, then I'd give them the code for free download :-)

Cool, I think that's exactly it. Until now, I had overlooked that feature in appstoreconncet. Thanks a million!