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Lack of realistic choice. If you are the average consumer looking to buy a smartphone, you have the choice of either Android or Apple. You get more choice with

Lack of realistic choice. If you are the average consumer looking to buy a smartphone, you have the choice of either Android or Apple. You get more choice with a PC, to an extent - the average consumer is going to get to choose between Microsoft, something like a chromebook, or apple. (Most folks buy mainstream, widely available products that work out of the box). I'm not sure the market for non-standard products is that high. A non-significant number of folks wouldn't put anything on their computer that hasn't been approved for fear of "bad things".

skohan 6y ago
Windows, Apple and Chromebooks are all proprietary platforms. With PC you also have the choice to install Linux, which is the categorical difference. With smartphones there's not really an open choice available.
- Broken_Hippo 6y ago
  I specifically didn't mention Linux because Linux isn't a realistic choice for the average consumer, though. Realistic choices come commonly pre-installed and works with a range of things without much work for the end consumer. Most folks don't have the choice to install it due to lack of technical competence anyway. Even folks with the technical know-how often enough don't due to, well, ease of use issues. (Yes, I know you can buy computers without an OS and you can buy computes with Linux as well - but not enough to be realistic for most folks. I'm pretty sure you can buy phones with a different OS as well but again, not realistic choices).
  - sensanaty 6y ago
    Linux is pretty user friendly these days though, Ubuntu and Mint are perfectly usable even if you're not a poweruser. Maybe that's just the developer in me falsely believing people are more competent than they actually are, though.
    - dividedbyzero 6y ago
      The issue isn't using it, it's getting it set up, working with all hardware, getting everything that's needed installed across different repositories, configuring everything the way it's needed, then keeping it running, survive updates, and fixing it when it breaks, which desktop Linux is still very prone to (apt dependency conflicts have wrecked beyond repair many Linux installs I've run). At some point, you have to have a pretty deep understanding of how Linux and computers work to Google the right things, and then understand and apply a fix – or worse, you may have to work out one on your own, which may entail things like reading source code and patching stuff; I'd say I'm somewhat competent as far as running Linux goes, and I've had numerous issues over the years that I was unable to fix, mundane but non-negotiable things like "getting sound to work". Best case, that'll just require more or less heavy command line usage, which only a tiny minority of people have ever used before and which is highly non-intuitive at first. That amounts to building a very comprehensive set of skills that is completely worthless to most people otherwise, and that you don't need for Windows or macOS, let alone Android/iOS.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  Even though that's kinda sad, I don't expect to see any (relevant, mass-market, used by the general public) truly open alternative in the foreseeable future. The market just doesn't seem to be there for it. On PCs, already pretty much no one uses Linux outside of tech bubbles (and even there, seems like it's behind both Windows and macOS [0]), apparently somewhere around 1-2% [1] among the general population; in practice, it feels like it should be even less, at least based on what mainstream websites I'm familiar with see. And this is for general-purpose computers, where an open OS might have tangible benefits for the general, non-developer/ops public (not sure which, but I guess such a case could be made) – but phones don't seem to be general-purpose computers for most; it seems they're used for media consumption, taking photos, communication, maybe some light gaming, and not much else – all thinks where the existing walled gardens offer a very compelling experience with assurances for security and quality that open platforms might have a hard time delivering. A truly open smartphone platform would probably face an even harder uphill battle than desktop Linux, and that's already failed to gain traction time and again. You'd need compatible apps for it to gain traction, but who's going to make those? It'd have to offer a really polished UX, I don't see many people picking a clunky, ugly, bug-ridden phone based on GPL vs. proprietary – lots of people (including me) buy iPhones in part because they enjoy their design and UX. How do you make sure apps aren't scattered across lots of malware-infested app stores? How do you make sure people don't inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot all the time if you don't wall them off from choices that might lead to that? But how do you wall off people on a platform that is truly open? And so on, and so on. Unless some tech giant decides their interests align very much with a truly open and relevant mobile OS, I have a hard time seeing it happen – and even then. The current tech world is much different from when the major desktop environments solidified; this time around, the vast, overwhelming, huge majority of computer users are not enthusiasts or IT professionals anymore like in the 90s, but completely uninterested and uninvested in the tech apart from having it work for them to do relatively simple tasks, similar to what most people outside of the relevant enthusiast bubbles feel towards cars or stoves. I don't want to run Emacs on my stove and maybe blow myself up in the process, I want it to work reliably and safely and just heat my food. I'd actully like no one to be able to tinker at will with safety-critical software in their cars, because their segfaulting Formula 1 brake patch they got from some Facebook page might mean they plow into me and I die. [0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-developers-primary-operating-systems https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-de... [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Lack of realistic choice indeed. Only reason I'm writing this from an iPhone is because every other retail quality mobile device runs freaking Android.

skohan 6y ago

Windows, Apple and Chromebooks are all proprietary platforms. With PC you also have the choice to install Linux, which is the categorical difference. With smartphones there's not really an open choice available.

Broken_Hippo 6y ago
I specifically didn't mention Linux because Linux isn't a realistic choice for the average consumer, though. Realistic choices come commonly pre-installed and works with a range of things without much work for the end consumer. Most folks don't have the choice to install it due to lack of technical competence anyway. Even folks with the technical know-how often enough don't due to, well, ease of use issues. (Yes, I know you can buy computers without an OS and you can buy computes with Linux as well - but not enough to be realistic for most folks. I'm pretty sure you can buy phones with a different OS as well but again, not realistic choices).
- sensanaty 6y ago
  Linux is pretty user friendly these days though, Ubuntu and Mint are perfectly usable even if you're not a poweruser. Maybe that's just the developer in me falsely believing people are more competent than they actually are, though.
  - dividedbyzero 6y ago
    The issue isn't using it, it's getting it set up, working with all hardware, getting everything that's needed installed across different repositories, configuring everything the way it's needed, then keeping it running, survive updates, and fixing it when it breaks, which desktop Linux is still very prone to (apt dependency conflicts have wrecked beyond repair many Linux installs I've run). At some point, you have to have a pretty deep understanding of how Linux and computers work to Google the right things, and then understand and apply a fix – or worse, you may have to work out one on your own, which may entail things like reading source code and patching stuff; I'd say I'm somewhat competent as far as running Linux goes, and I've had numerous issues over the years that I was unable to fix, mundane but non-negotiable things like "getting sound to work". Best case, that'll just require more or less heavy command line usage, which only a tiny minority of people have ever used before and which is highly non-intuitive at first. That amounts to building a very comprehensive set of skills that is completely worthless to most people otherwise, and that you don't need for Windows or macOS, let alone Android/iOS.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
Even though that's kinda sad, I don't expect to see any (relevant, mass-market, used by the general public) truly open alternative in the foreseeable future. The market just doesn't seem to be there for it. On PCs, already pretty much no one uses Linux outside of tech bubbles (and even there, seems like it's behind both Windows and macOS [0]), apparently somewhere around 1-2% [1] among the general population; in practice, it feels like it should be even less, at least based on what mainstream websites I'm familiar with see. And this is for general-purpose computers, where an open OS might have tangible benefits for the general, non-developer/ops public (not sure which, but I guess such a case could be made) – but phones don't seem to be general-purpose computers for most; it seems they're used for media consumption, taking photos, communication, maybe some light gaming, and not much else – all thinks where the existing walled gardens offer a very compelling experience with assurances for security and quality that open platforms might have a hard time delivering. A truly open smartphone platform would probably face an even harder uphill battle than desktop Linux, and that's already failed to gain traction time and again. You'd need compatible apps for it to gain traction, but who's going to make those? It'd have to offer a really polished UX, I don't see many people picking a clunky, ugly, bug-ridden phone based on GPL vs. proprietary – lots of people (including me) buy iPhones in part because they enjoy their design and UX. How do you make sure apps aren't scattered across lots of malware-infested app stores? How do you make sure people don't inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot all the time if you don't wall them off from choices that might lead to that? But how do you wall off people on a platform that is truly open? And so on, and so on. Unless some tech giant decides their interests align very much with a truly open and relevant mobile OS, I have a hard time seeing it happen – and even then. The current tech world is much different from when the major desktop environments solidified; this time around, the vast, overwhelming, huge majority of computer users are not enthusiasts or IT professionals anymore like in the 90s, but completely uninterested and uninvested in the tech apart from having it work for them to do relatively simple tasks, similar to what most people outside of the relevant enthusiast bubbles feel towards cars or stoves. I don't want to run Emacs on my stove and maybe blow myself up in the process, I want it to work reliably and safely and just heat my food. I'd actully like no one to be able to tinker at will with safety-critical software in their cars, because their segfaulting Formula 1 brake patch they got from some Facebook page might mean they plow into me and I die. [0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-developers-primary-operating-systems https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-de... [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Lack of realistic choice indeed. Only reason I'm writing this from an iPhone is because every other retail quality mobile device runs freaking Android.