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> Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment to your quality of life really. Yes it is. iOS controls a sufficient part of US revenue that wider
by Mindwipe 6y ago
> Your liberty is not at stake here, nor any real detriment to your quality of life really.
Yes it is.
iOS controls a sufficient part of US revenue that wider ecosystem effects on what is permitted speech come directly from the app store terms, or at least in some cases about trying to second guess the inconsistently applied, arbitrary and vague as hell App Store rules.
We've got direct testimony from all sorts of app makers that what speech they do and do not censor on the platform (especially around sex, impacting the fundamental liberties and safety of sex workers, queer communities, artists and educators) is directly because their business is such that they need to watch the terms of the app store.
We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to their death.
Liberty is the fundamental reason that a singular control of what software can be run on mobile device is a thing too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Competition law is probably the most expedient route to fix it, but a centralised app store should be a criminal act on it's own merits.
- yossarian1408 6y agoExcept there are no negative rights being infringed upon here. You can hardly appeal to natural law for the right to publish what you want on someone else's platform. Liberty is defined as being 'free from', not 'free to'. > We've seen examples in China of Apple blocking apps that literally lead to people failing to escape authoritarian governments and them disappearing, quite possibly to their death. This seems very flimsy but I would be genuinely interested in reading up on this, if you could provide a source/reference. Either way, this is a great reason not to use and publish on the iOS platform. But the irony of suggesting government overreach as a cure for the ails of extreme government overreach in another country is not lost on me.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoI want freedom from Apple controlling iPhone that is now my property. Where is my liberty?
- yossarian1408 6y agoLiberty does not mean freedom. Actually, the positive freedom you want for would come at cost of the negative liberties of other individuals. And an iPhone being your property does not change the properties of the iPhone you bought. You can tinker with it as much as your ability allows you to, but if you are not happy with the limitations of the device than you should not have bought that device.
- echelon 6y agoThat device is causing rippling negative externalities across our industry. It's gone beyond your choice or my choice - Apple is gravitationally distorting the entire industry and bending it to its will.
- CRConrad 6y ago> Liberty does not mean freedom. Actually that's literally exactly what it means.