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Your ideal state of Internet / Tech companies is definitely in the minority contrasted to overall expectations the broader population has put on these devices a

Your ideal state of Internet / Tech companies is definitely in the minority contrasted to overall expectations the broader population has put on these devices and services. Yeah, we get it, you're smart. I'm smart. Most people here are smart. But protections still matter. What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. Sure that is your choice - but I think it is a very foolish one.

cameronbrown 7y ago
There's no reason the App Store can't hang around, we just want the ability to sideload. Comparing it to not wearing a seatbelt is a straw man, as it's more like being able to use your car however you like without the manufacturer's say so.
- zuppy 7y ago
  you can already do that, you just have to build it yourself. here’s an article from 2016: https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/27/how-to-create-free-apple-developer-account-sideload-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/27/how-to-create-free-apple-deve...
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    There's a limitation on the number of apps you can sideload (3), and each app auto-expires after a short period (7 days) of time and needs to be re-provisioned.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  I agree with your desire to side-load. My only caveat I would apply to that is to put some super really scary warnings to the user (as they will be no longer within the security of the walled ecosystem). I don't want users to accidentally side-load something because someone told them to, and not be aware of the extra risk the are potentially introducing.
  - MrGilbert 7y ago
    You mean like the message people get shown when the UAC comes up in Windows, which almost everbody clicks away? Average people don't care. If you tell 'em to do so or so, they will do.
  - cameronbrown 7y ago
    That's exactly how Android works.
shkkmo 7y ago
> I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. Sure that is your choice - but I think it is a very foolish one. Not at all. What he is saying is "I don't want my car to refuse to start if I am not wearing a seatbelt."
magashna 7y ago
The seatbelt seems like a bad analogy when there are motorcycles on the road.
corrigible 7y ago
People are, in fact, free to forego the use of a seatbelt.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Yes and no. You can get a ticket in at least some US states. (In practice, unless you get pulled over for some other reason, you can probably get away with it essentially all of the time.)
okmokmz 7y ago
>What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car I don't think that is a good analogy in this case. It's more like he's trying to do a repair on his car, and he wants to be able to use some cheap parts sourced from elsewhere but the manufacturer has made it so only their parts will work. Sure, maybe the parts that don't come directly from the manufacturer will blow up my car, but I'd still have the freedom to choose than be locked down by some massive corporation because they say they're keeping me safe.
spaginal 7y ago
That’s a wrong analogy. If you want to stay with cars, it’s like Google saying when you buy their car, you are only allowed to go to 6 pre determined destinations in their vehicles. Some people find comfort in the lack of choice, since they know the drive won’t be “dangerous”, but for the rest of us, we want to make the choice of destination ourselves. We simply want the choice to open our options without these companies punishing the consumer over making a choice with a very expensive piece of hardware we own. This scenario still doesn’t prevent Apple and Google from providing their tightly controlled closed garden of choices for those that want it that way, but for the rest of us, we get our freedom back.
- umvi 7y ago
  > If you want to stay with cars, it’s like Google saying when you buy their car, you are only allowed to go to 6 pre determined destinations in their vehicles. It's more like, when you buy a car, you are only allowed to go to Google-approved destinations. You are allowed to submit a new destination for consideration, but ultimately google can decide if you are allowed to go there or not.
  - kec 7y ago
    In this analogy it sounds like google is a bus, which is... fine? Maybe not for you but what’s wrong with busses for those who don’t care about flexibility?
    - shims 7y ago
      People buy busses because they're busses. Almost noone buys a phone because it's super locked down and some company decides when it's too old and can't install apps from the app store anymore.
      - judge2020 7y ago
        FWIW Apple devices can still download apps from multiple versions back (my ipad mini can download apps on ios 9), developers might just set a minimum OS requirement if they use certain new APIs.
throwaway_law 7y ago
>What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. As others have said there may be more apt analogies...sticking with the car theme, it may be closer to a market where you buy a Ford and then you can only fill your Ford up with Ford gas from a Ford gas station. That market doesn't exist for clear cut reasons, but if it did you can bet Ford and other car manufacturers would claim the same thing, that limiting Ford owners to using Ford gas is for their safety, if Ford owners started putting gas into their Ford from a 3rd party, there could be all kinds of harmful additives or other quality issues with the gas that will damage the Ford. Of course Ford won't mention on their tax to "Ford gas suppliers" (of 33%) for access to the Ford car market.
- jimmydddd 7y ago
  I worked in the computer printer industry a ways back. The printer companies tried to make this argument with respect to blocking generic ink cartridges from being used on their printers. They argued that they needed to limit to the manufactuerer's cartridges to guarantee a good user experience.
  - throwaway_law 7y ago
    I know I read articles about that (much like the right to repair articles with respect to CAT heavy machinery), was there any legal action against any of the printer companies you know about? If I recall the outcome correctly I believe the printer companies lost the fight, but I don't know/remember if that was voluntary or court ordered. As it relates to printers/cartridges unlike my car manufacture/gas hypothetical or the app store, I could potentially see certain IP (from patents to trade dress) rights that may actually help the printer companies argument (but again I think they backed down anyway).
  - mindslight 7y ago
    The scary thing is that these companies aren't simply being disingenuous - they earnestly believe this. A company takes for granted that they are good actors, and that their customers' interests are perfectly aligned with their own. With those assertions, increasing their control can only mean a better ability to make things good/safe/simple for their customers. But that is an authoritarian delusion. Because real difficulty arises out of cross-party emergent complexity - illegible and unmanageable by any single entity. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is blatantly obvious when you, as an individual actor, eventually end up at odds with whatever authoritarian scheme they've implemented - wishing to do something simple that you've personally judged as good/safe, but it's impossible to convince that centralized controller to understand / approve it. In the real (multi-actor) world, we acknowledge that interests diverge on either side of a transaction. Someone who has bought a printer is then an individual participant in the ink market. Someone who buys a pocket computer wants that computer to act for their own interest - not for it to be beholden to the whims of the company who made it. Unfortunately, always-on communication, the difficulty of reverse engineering, and overbearing copyright law have allowed these companies to double down on overarching control rather than allowing reasonable demarcation points. Apple could straightforwardly create an app sandbox that would allow running fully untrusted code with fine-grained capabilities, unilaterally design it to not have the vulnerabilities that the Web continues to have (eg fingerprinting), and allow sideloading after appropriate warnings. And lest you think I'm being partisan here, the same exact thing applies to Google's general insistence that sideloaded apps are less safe. But it's much simpler and more lucrative to double down on authoritarian control until they're forced to create those demarc points, either by direct legislation or by consumer demand - eg if this recent censorship trend eventually pushes them to prohibit secure communication apps in their central stores.
echelon 7y ago
How are app stores the only means of providing reasonable security? They already fail at that job. A huge number of apps, including popular ones, request as many permissions as they can. In what world do I want a transit app listening to my microphone? There isn't anything that precludes security in an app store-less world. If we sat for an hour, we could whiteboard a number of technical solutions that could be engineered. - apps still require signing - implementing a stricter permissions / ACL model - continuously scan devices for malware or bad heuristical behavior - publish a list of misbehaving apps that can be subscribed to and automatically scrubbed - semantic sets of app permissions. Gallery apps don't get microphone, contact, or location data. We could easily engineer for a distributed world. The problem is that Apple and Google want complete control. Playing gatekeeper gives them authority, and they get to take a large rake of any money being made. Don't make excuses for their model. They're bad actors that have abused their monopoly powers.
soulofmischief 7y ago
Don't strawman this argument into a conversation about intelligence. This is about personal freedom. Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Installing an app will not do that. Let's stay on topic. And while we're at it, you and I both know that majority opinion has never been strongly correlated with truth.
- eropple 7y ago
  > Installing an app will not do that. Ever seen a botnet?
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    There is a difference between installing some sketchy third-party app from an apk provider and installing an app that simply doesn't meet Apple/Google's community guidelines.
- JaRail 7y ago
  > Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Wow, I'm surprised that has never occurred to me before. I guess that to most people, such as myself, the trade-off is so obvious from a personal safety point of view that we don't think too deeply over it. This is a great point.
  - liability 7y ago
    Beyond legal liability, there is also the matter of the psychological trauma inflicted on the other driver when you die.

cameronbrown 7y ago

There's no reason the App Store can't hang around, we just want the ability to sideload. Comparing it to not wearing a seatbelt is a straw man, as it's more like being able to use your car however you like without the manufacturer's say so.

zuppy 7y ago
you can already do that, you just have to build it yourself. here’s an article from 2016: https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/27/how-to-create-free-apple-developer-account-sideload-apps/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/27/how-to-create-free-apple-deve...
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  There's a limitation on the number of apps you can sideload (3), and each app auto-expires after a short period (7 days) of time and needs to be re-provisioned.
GhettoMaestro 7y ago
I agree with your desire to side-load. My only caveat I would apply to that is to put some super really scary warnings to the user (as they will be no longer within the security of the walled ecosystem). I don't want users to accidentally side-load something because someone told them to, and not be aware of the extra risk the are potentially introducing.
- MrGilbert 7y ago
  You mean like the message people get shown when the UAC comes up in Windows, which almost everbody clicks away? Average people don't care. If you tell 'em to do so or so, they will do.
- cameronbrown 7y ago
  That's exactly how Android works.

shkkmo 7y ago

> I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. Sure that is your choice - but I think it is a very foolish one. Not at all. What he is saying is "I don't want my car to refuse to start if I am not wearing a seatbelt."

magashna 7y ago

The seatbelt seems like a bad analogy when there are motorcycles on the road.

corrigible 7y ago

People are, in fact, free to forego the use of a seatbelt.

ghaff 7y ago
Yes and no. You can get a ticket in at least some US states. (In practice, unless you get pulled over for some other reason, you can probably get away with it essentially all of the time.)

okmokmz 7y ago

>What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car I don't think that is a good analogy in this case. It's more like he's trying to do a repair on his car, and he wants to be able to use some cheap parts sourced from elsewhere but the manufacturer has made it so only their parts will work. Sure, maybe the parts that don't come directly from the manufacturer will blow up my car, but I'd still have the freedom to choose than be locked down by some massive corporation because they say they're keeping me safe.

spaginal 7y ago

That’s a wrong analogy. If you want to stay with cars, it’s like Google saying when you buy their car, you are only allowed to go to 6 pre determined destinations in their vehicles. Some people find comfort in the lack of choice, since they know the drive won’t be “dangerous”, but for the rest of us, we want to make the choice of destination ourselves. We simply want the choice to open our options without these companies punishing the consumer over making a choice with a very expensive piece of hardware we own. This scenario still doesn’t prevent Apple and Google from providing their tightly controlled closed garden of choices for those that want it that way, but for the rest of us, we get our freedom back.

umvi 7y ago
> If you want to stay with cars, it’s like Google saying when you buy their car, you are only allowed to go to 6 pre determined destinations in their vehicles. It's more like, when you buy a car, you are only allowed to go to Google-approved destinations. You are allowed to submit a new destination for consideration, but ultimately google can decide if you are allowed to go there or not.
- kec 7y ago
  In this analogy it sounds like google is a bus, which is... fine? Maybe not for you but what’s wrong with busses for those who don’t care about flexibility?
  - shims 7y ago
    People buy busses because they're busses. Almost noone buys a phone because it's super locked down and some company decides when it's too old and can't install apps from the app store anymore.
    - judge2020 7y ago
      FWIW Apple devices can still download apps from multiple versions back (my ipad mini can download apps on ios 9), developers might just set a minimum OS requirement if they use certain new APIs.

throwaway_law 7y ago

>What you're saying is I don't want to wear a seatbelt when driving my car. As others have said there may be more apt analogies...sticking with the car theme, it may be closer to a market where you buy a Ford and then you can only fill your Ford up with Ford gas from a Ford gas station. That market doesn't exist for clear cut reasons, but if it did you can bet Ford and other car manufacturers would claim the same thing, that limiting Ford owners to using Ford gas is for their safety, if Ford owners started putting gas into their Ford from a 3rd party, there could be all kinds of harmful additives or other quality issues with the gas that will damage the Ford. Of course Ford won't mention on their tax to "Ford gas suppliers" (of 33%) for access to the Ford car market.

jimmydddd 7y ago
I worked in the computer printer industry a ways back. The printer companies tried to make this argument with respect to blocking generic ink cartridges from being used on their printers. They argued that they needed to limit to the manufactuerer's cartridges to guarantee a good user experience.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  I know I read articles about that (much like the right to repair articles with respect to CAT heavy machinery), was there any legal action against any of the printer companies you know about? If I recall the outcome correctly I believe the printer companies lost the fight, but I don't know/remember if that was voluntary or court ordered. As it relates to printers/cartridges unlike my car manufacture/gas hypothetical or the app store, I could potentially see certain IP (from patents to trade dress) rights that may actually help the printer companies argument (but again I think they backed down anyway).
- mindslight 7y ago
  The scary thing is that these companies aren't simply being disingenuous - they earnestly believe this. A company takes for granted that they are good actors, and that their customers' interests are perfectly aligned with their own. With those assertions, increasing their control can only mean a better ability to make things good/safe/simple for their customers. But that is an authoritarian delusion. Because real difficulty arises out of cross-party emergent complexity - illegible and unmanageable by any single entity. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is blatantly obvious when you, as an individual actor, eventually end up at odds with whatever authoritarian scheme they've implemented - wishing to do something simple that you've personally judged as good/safe, but it's impossible to convince that centralized controller to understand / approve it. In the real (multi-actor) world, we acknowledge that interests diverge on either side of a transaction. Someone who has bought a printer is then an individual participant in the ink market. Someone who buys a pocket computer wants that computer to act for their own interest - not for it to be beholden to the whims of the company who made it. Unfortunately, always-on communication, the difficulty of reverse engineering, and overbearing copyright law have allowed these companies to double down on overarching control rather than allowing reasonable demarcation points. Apple could straightforwardly create an app sandbox that would allow running fully untrusted code with fine-grained capabilities, unilaterally design it to not have the vulnerabilities that the Web continues to have (eg fingerprinting), and allow sideloading after appropriate warnings. And lest you think I'm being partisan here, the same exact thing applies to Google's general insistence that sideloaded apps are less safe. But it's much simpler and more lucrative to double down on authoritarian control until they're forced to create those demarc points, either by direct legislation or by consumer demand - eg if this recent censorship trend eventually pushes them to prohibit secure communication apps in their central stores.

echelon 7y ago

How are app stores the only means of providing reasonable security? They already fail at that job. A huge number of apps, including popular ones, request as many permissions as they can. In what world do I want a transit app listening to my microphone? There isn't anything that precludes security in an app store-less world. If we sat for an hour, we could whiteboard a number of technical solutions that could be engineered. - apps still require signing - implementing a stricter permissions / ACL model - continuously scan devices for malware or bad heuristical behavior - publish a list of misbehaving apps that can be subscribed to and automatically scrubbed - semantic sets of app permissions. Gallery apps don't get microphone, contact, or location data. We could easily engineer for a distributed world. The problem is that Apple and Google want complete control. Playing gatekeeper gives them authority, and they get to take a large rake of any money being made. Don't make excuses for their model. They're bad actors that have abused their monopoly powers.

soulofmischief 7y ago

Don't strawman this argument into a conversation about intelligence. This is about personal freedom. Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Installing an app will not do that. Let's stay on topic. And while we're at it, you and I both know that majority opinion has never been strongly correlated with truth.

eropple 7y ago
> Installing an app will not do that. Ever seen a botnet?
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  There is a difference between installing some sketchy third-party app from an apk provider and installing an app that simply doesn't meet Apple/Google's community guidelines.
JaRail 7y ago
> Not wearing a seatbelt can put others at risk for injury liability. Wow, I'm surprised that has never occurred to me before. I guess that to most people, such as myself, the trade-off is so obvious from a personal safety point of view that we don't think too deeply over it. This is a great point.
- liability 7y ago
  Beyond legal liability, there is also the matter of the psychological trauma inflicted on the other driver when you die.