Economic loses due to apple scab over an extended period of time far outweigh the impact of any other apple pathogen. Historically one can find examples the symptoms of V.  inaequalis in paintings as far back as the fifteenth century. Fruit production can be limited due to defoliation while limiting fruit bud creation in the following year.  While the disease can cause total crop loss in optimal conditions without management, the main economic impact is due to the reduction in both size and marketable quality of the fruit. This issue is further compounded by the fact that apple cultivars with a high market share, Pink Lady for example, are susceptible to the pathogen while more resistant varieties are less well known or desired by consumers. At an industrial production level these threats are only reliably mitigated by expensive, labor intensive and repeated spraying of pesticides. In regions of apple production where the year's weather is conducive to infection up to 70% of the pesticides applied are used to control for the effects of apple scab. While the main host of economic interest are various apple cultivars the other host species are still affected by the pathogen. Considering most of these are commercially used as ornamental species, flowering crab apples for example, the importance of the pathogen shifts to be a more aesthetic nuisance. In the academic sense V. inaequalis has proved invaluable in the realm of genetic research of pathogenicity. It is one of the first ascomycete fungi to undergo genetic analysis and continues to be useful in that field. The fungi's mechanistic similarity to obligate parasites while still being able to be cultured in media has led to its repeated use in the study of the genes related to pathogenicity.
