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Devil’s advocate take: The nanosecond bad actors (e.g., mega corps) can have apps exclusively in these alt stores, that’s when those corps will move, reinsert

Devil’s advocate take: The nanosecond bad actors (e.g., mega corps) can have apps exclusively in these alt stores, that’s when those corps will move, reinsert their anti-consumer code that Apple makes them take out, and have that be the only choice. And these mega corps will tell consumers about what’s in there as much as they used to before Apple added the mandatory disclosures which is — not disclose at all. Also, it’s much easier to make peace with Apple choosing what can be snapped into a modular PDA (personal digital assistant) if you stop distinguishing between hardware and software as if that distinction matters for an appliance, and consider it all firmware and all part of a singular trusted digital experience: “Don’t make me think.” Today, consumers can choose trusted curation and full integration (iDevices), or non-curated and unbundled (countless brand + Android OS options). If alt app stores happen, consumers will lose this choice, because nobody will be left counter balancing the exploiting corporations’ power. The race to monetizing exploitation happening before Apple stepped in will continue apace.

hammyhavoc 4y ago
Quite possibly, mate! I don't have any skin in the game in terms of Apple anymore. I use Android these days, and I use F-Droid, and all the apps on it are FOSS and possible to audit. If privacy/security is a concern, the only winning move is not to play with closed source OS and firmware on devices. Side-loading and installing from binary blobs is the counter-balancing choice: don't use any third-party app store, pick-and-choose what you run. Not to do any disservice to F-Droid, it's an excellent option, but only doing what you could do by hand.
wartijn_ 4y ago
If that's the case, shouldn't we have seen this behavior on Android? The Play Store has all kind of restrictions and it has always been possible to create you own store and only offer your apps in that store. Yet you can download apps from every mega corp in the Play store. > Today, consumers can choose trusted curation and full integration (iDevices), or non-curated and unbundled (countless brand + Android OS options). Or option 3: curated and integrated by buying an Android phone that comes bundled with all kinds of Google applications.
lapcat 4y ago
> nobody will be left counter balancing the exploiting corporations’ power The 3 major computing platform vendors Apple, Microsoft, and Google are 3 of the 4 largest corporations in the world by market cap. They are the corporate power with no counterbalance.
8note 4y ago
Even if apple is less powerful, nobody will be forced to download Facebook or fortnite, and you can instead continue to just use the apple app store. Apps will continue to be added that meet apple's expectations because people trust spending money there. If your worry was founded, these apps already wouldn't be on Apple devices because they'd be androind-only
- Terretta 4y ago
  The mega corps are angling for marketing dollars (ad spend) and those with marketing dollars want the audiences with “wallet share” and when split that way, those audiences are something like 85% iOS, 15% Android. This means the megacorps “have to” play nice on iOS in order to serve up monied audiences to their advertisers.
ThatPlayer 4y ago
If consumers are choosing Apple for their trusted curation, why would those same consumers no longer stick to the Apple's own App Store? If exploiting corporations were so all-powerful, why do they have to release on Apple devices at all? Why wouldn't they just exclusively release it on platforms they can exploit? Because consumers demand it. Those same consumers can demand it on the Apple App Store.

hammyhavoc 4y ago

Quite possibly, mate! I don't have any skin in the game in terms of Apple anymore. I use Android these days, and I use F-Droid, and all the apps on it are FOSS and possible to audit. If privacy/security is a concern, the only winning move is not to play with closed source OS and firmware on devices. Side-loading and installing from binary blobs is the counter-balancing choice: don't use any third-party app store, pick-and-choose what you run. Not to do any disservice to F-Droid, it's an excellent option, but only doing what you could do by hand.

wartijn_ 4y ago

If that's the case, shouldn't we have seen this behavior on Android? The Play Store has all kind of restrictions and it has always been possible to create you own store and only offer your apps in that store. Yet you can download apps from every mega corp in the Play store. > Today, consumers can choose trusted curation and full integration (iDevices), or non-curated and unbundled (countless brand + Android OS options). Or option 3: curated and integrated by buying an Android phone that comes bundled with all kinds of Google applications.

lapcat 4y ago

> nobody will be left counter balancing the exploiting corporations’ power The 3 major computing platform vendors Apple, Microsoft, and Google are 3 of the 4 largest corporations in the world by market cap. They are the corporate power with no counterbalance.

8note 4y ago

Even if apple is less powerful, nobody will be forced to download Facebook or fortnite, and you can instead continue to just use the apple app store. Apps will continue to be added that meet apple's expectations because people trust spending money there. If your worry was founded, these apps already wouldn't be on Apple devices because they'd be androind-only

Terretta 4y ago
The mega corps are angling for marketing dollars (ad spend) and those with marketing dollars want the audiences with “wallet share” and when split that way, those audiences are something like 85% iOS, 15% Android. This means the megacorps “have to” play nice on iOS in order to serve up monied audiences to their advertisers.

ThatPlayer 4y ago

If consumers are choosing Apple for their trusted curation, why would those same consumers no longer stick to the Apple's own App Store? If exploiting corporations were so all-powerful, why do they have to release on Apple devices at all? Why wouldn't they just exclusively release it on platforms they can exploit? Because consumers demand it. Those same consumers can demand it on the Apple App Store.