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The fundamental problem with all app stores is that they're a monopoly. Google and Apple can decide whatever they want because both users and producers/develope

The fundamental problem with all app stores is that they're a monopoly. Google and Apple can decide whatever they want because both users and producers/developers don't have good options for distribution channels. Whenever you complain about "discoverability", arbitrary rules or opaque processes without appeals you are really complaining about a monopoly that has power to do whatever they want to do. Yes, I am aware about sideloading apps in some platforms. But in practice they don't really provide too much of an alternative. There have been talks about splitting the appstores from the companies that make the platforms (Elizabeth Warren proposed it). It follows some of the arguments that forced the splitting of the Bell System into AT&T and baby bells or the breakup of Standard Oil. Appstores are part of a walled garden protected by a moat called network effect. Edit: the main justification for app stores has been security. It is a false justification, a smoke screen. There are alternative ways to avoid malware, e.g.: sandboxing, virtualization, containers or signed apps. Using these techniques, Microsoft has been quite successful on avoiding malware in Windows 10 from outside their Windows Store. The real reason Apple & Google want their stores is to mantain control, to keep their moat deep and wide.

realusername 7y ago
Just the fact they call it "side loading" is showing it's a monopoly. They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is doomed to fail, they could never sustain a real competition.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is doomed to fail, they could never sustain a real competition. Not that I disagree that the Apple and Google app stores are monopolies, but, as a counterexample to "doomed to fail", I would almost never install a Firefox extension from outside addons.mozilla.org , even though it's just an extra click or two to do so—the security trade-off is just too great.
  - realusername 7y ago
    I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store.
    - JadeNB 7y ago
      > I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't claim no-one wouldn't, just that I wouldn't—and I'm a moderately techie type. > I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app outside the store, you could do it with an app inside the store. Certainly the mere act of being in the 'store' itself does nothing, but I trust Mozilla's review process (certainly more than Apple's or Google's) to screen out some of the obvious security flags that I wouldn't, or couldn't be bothered to, notice.
      - realusername 7y ago
        Depends what we are talking about, if it's unintentional security issues, the store review is good for that. If the author is trying to put malware in the extension, you have so many ways to hide it that it's pretty much guaranteed they won't catch it. That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review.
        seanwilson 7y ago
        > That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review. Nobody has found a decent way to do fine grained permissions for extensions yet and it's made much harder (compared to say mobile apps) when many extensions need to read/modify data on any web domain. The ominous "Access your data on all web sites" permission is required by uBlock for example because there's nothing more fine grained that will let it block the network requests it's checking for.

realusername 7y ago

Just the fact they call it "side loading" is showing it's a monopoly. They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is doomed to fail, they could never sustain a real competition.

JadeNB 7y ago
> They discourage any installation outside their walled garden because they know that if users have an alternative like they do on PC, their walled garden is doomed to fail, they could never sustain a real competition. Not that I disagree that the Apple and Google app stores are monopolies, but, as a counterexample to "doomed to fail", I would almost never install a Firefox extension from outside addons.mozilla.org , even though it's just an extra click or two to do so—the security trade-off is just too great.
- realusername 7y ago
  I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app installed outside the store, you can also do it with an app inside the store. The security is provided by the sandboxing capabilities and the permissions, not the store.
  - JadeNB 7y ago
    > I have done it a few times myself, I just looked at the website to be sure I'm installing the right one. I don't claim no-one wouldn't, just that I wouldn't—and I'm a moderately techie type. > I don't think stores provide any security guarantee anyway, anything you can do with an app outside the store, you could do it with an app inside the store. Certainly the mere act of being in the 'store' itself does nothing, but I trust Mozilla's review process (certainly more than Apple's or Google's) to screen out some of the obvious security flags that I wouldn't, or couldn't be bothered to, notice.
    - realusername 7y ago
      Depends what we are talking about, if it's unintentional security issues, the store review is good for that. If the author is trying to put malware in the extension, you have so many ways to hide it that it's pretty much guaranteed they won't catch it. That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review.
      - seanwilson 7y ago
        > That's why I trust much more the sandboxing capabilities than the store review. Nobody has found a decent way to do fine grained permissions for extensions yet and it's made much harder (compared to say mobile apps) when many extensions need to read/modify data on any web domain. The ominous "Access your data on all web sites" permission is required by uBlock for example because there's nothing more fine grained that will let it block the network requests it's checking for.