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He's making this case against one of the least gate-kept stores in the ecosystem and is writing this from the perspective of the power user, and it is obvious t
by seemslegit 7y ago
He's making this case against one of the least gate-kept stores in the ecosystem and is writing this from the perspective of the power user, and it is obvious to him and you (and me for that matter ) that users due diligence is non-substitutable, but in a corporate vendor context whether of a browser or OS this effectively makes a case for an ios-style walled garden and ripping the inherent benefits of revenue and ecosystem control.
- danShumway 7y agoI won't dispute that a vendor could walk away with that conclusion. I will dispute that they'd be correct to do so. I suspect that everything I'm about to say is just violently agreeing with you, and every point I'm about to make is already obvious both to you and to most of the people on HN. But it's still worth saying -- if you can't protect advanced users, you can't protect normal users. A technical user is (usually) going to be safer about what they install than a normal user, they're going to recognize weird software behavior, they're going to react more quickly to threats, and be less prone to doing dumb things because a random website told them to. Making power users like Krebbs feel safe is the minimum bar. Krebbs should be the easiest person in the world to secure, because they're already being careful. So if Krebb's isn't willing to install software, then the security model is utterly broken, not just for power users but for everyone. I think there's some value in attacking app store monopolies from that angle -- pointing out that they're not just a threat to user freedom, they're also security theater. They don't work. Whether or not Krebbs actually got that point across effectively... :shrug: