3 ms·

Besides laws regulating tracking (good or bad). There could still be a net benefit while also increasing choice and competition. By allowing 3p app stores. ea

Besides laws regulating tracking (good or bad). There could still be a net benefit while also increasing choice and competition. By allowing 3p app stores. each app store competitor could create their own privacy policies, quality requirements, or maybe manual curation. whatever differentiation. Apple would still surely capture a large % of average consumers whose privacy would be protected. But those who care could seek out and customize their experience and chose a different privacy policy.

simondotau 4y ago
You're being optimistic. The realistic scenario is that stores could compete on price. (Even though they would still be required—per Apple's developer agreement and the recent court ruling—to withhold a percentage of each purchase/IAP as a license fee for use of Apple's intellectual property.) The only thing other than price is the opportunity to attract less scrupulous developers in a race to the bottom with respect to policy enforcement.
initplus 4y ago
The immediate result of this is that publishers who don't want to play by Apple's privacy laws will only host their apps on alternative app stores. Want Facebook on your iphone? It'll only be available on the app store that has less strict privacy protections. It's not seeking out and customizing my experience if the only choice is "have my privacy violated, or don't use the service. That's the experience that already exists on platforms with less strict privacy protections.
- simondotau 4y ago
  And this isn't going to be like alt stores on Android today. If the requirement for alternative stores is enshrined by laws written by Apple's competitors, you'd better believe it's going to be a lot more seamless than that. If this dystopia of Government control over my phone comes to pass, I personally predict that we'll see companies like Google, Meta and Adobe run company stores as the exclusive way to load their apps.
  - neura 4y ago
    Yeah, I was just thinking about this before reading what you said. Thinking about the possibility of Meta running their own store is a horrifying idea.
  - throw457 4y ago
    Yeah, because it totally works out like that on other platforms if epic didn’t have massive success of Fortnite to subsidize their store on pc no one would use it. Ea, Ubisoft, Bethesda, rockstar everyone of them came back to steam.
azinman2 4y ago
So why hasn’t this happened on Android? The App Store that protects users but also is where all the people go so they have the power to force Fortnite, TikTok, Facebook, etc to all do the right thing? As others have pointed out, this only works as well as it does for Apple because there isn’t a reasonable way to side load apps. As soon as there is, Facebook will just jingle their large carrot on their own distribution system that lets them do whatever they want.

simondotau 4y ago

You're being optimistic. The realistic scenario is that stores could compete on price. (Even though they would still be required—per Apple's developer agreement and the recent court ruling—to withhold a percentage of each purchase/IAP as a license fee for use of Apple's intellectual property.) The only thing other than price is the opportunity to attract less scrupulous developers in a race to the bottom with respect to policy enforcement.

initplus 4y ago

The immediate result of this is that publishers who don't want to play by Apple's privacy laws will only host their apps on alternative app stores. Want Facebook on your iphone? It'll only be available on the app store that has less strict privacy protections. It's not seeking out and customizing my experience if the only choice is "have my privacy violated, or don't use the service. That's the experience that already exists on platforms with less strict privacy protections.

simondotau 4y ago
And this isn't going to be like alt stores on Android today. If the requirement for alternative stores is enshrined by laws written by Apple's competitors, you'd better believe it's going to be a lot more seamless than that. If this dystopia of Government control over my phone comes to pass, I personally predict that we'll see companies like Google, Meta and Adobe run company stores as the exclusive way to load their apps.
- neura 4y ago
  Yeah, I was just thinking about this before reading what you said. Thinking about the possibility of Meta running their own store is a horrifying idea.
- throw457 4y ago
  Yeah, because it totally works out like that on other platforms if epic didn’t have massive success of Fortnite to subsidize their store on pc no one would use it. Ea, Ubisoft, Bethesda, rockstar everyone of them came back to steam.

azinman2 4y ago

So why hasn’t this happened on Android? The App Store that protects users but also is where all the people go so they have the power to force Fortnite, TikTok, Facebook, etc to all do the right thing? As others have pointed out, this only works as well as it does for Apple because there isn’t a reasonable way to side load apps. As soon as there is, Facebook will just jingle their large carrot on their own distribution system that lets them do whatever they want.