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This article seems at odds with itself if I'm reading it correctly. The augment put forth is partly that an app store / hub not accepting all possible apps is

by naet 4y ago

This article seems at odds with itself if I'm reading it correctly. The augment put forth is partly that an app store / hub not accepting all possible apps is a form of censorship, but simultaneously asserts that that there are too many apps and an app store that doesn't accept all apps is providing a "curation" service that is beneficial to the user. Maybe they are trying to make a delineation between a large scale app store and a small scale app store, but the point doesn't feel well defined or fleshed out. Unsure what was meant by the statement "The freedom to get apps will always be in tension with the things that people want to keep out of their life"... applications being available to install doesn't mean you have to install them. I agree that the iOS App Store and Google Play store enjoy a monopoly over much of the world, but I don't see that China has a less censored market. I understand China to have far greater government censorship over the internet and their applications than most other regions, so having a more even market share over multiple app stores doesn't necessarily improve the censorship issue.

hnuser123456 4y ago
"The big default app stores are full of millions of crap apps trying to monetize you, and F-droid only has a few thousand high-quality open source apps created to actually benefit you" might be a little less roundabout, if not too on the nose. The censorship angle makes sense regarding app devs who complain about getting their app removed for unknown "policy violations", and the fact that a would-be malware dev would (hopefully) hesitate before publishing on an open-source repo is a positive type of curation/censorship.
woojoo666 4y ago
> The augment put forth is partly that an app store / hub not accepting all possible apps is a form of censorship, I believe they are saying that a _monopolistic_ app store that doesn't accept all apps is a form of censorship. And then the article (along with some comments in this thread) explain how Google Play and Apple App Store are monopolistic
eighthave 4y ago
It is not about scale as much as the possibility of getting apps from multiple sources. Each source can set its own curation policies, and each user can choose the sources they want. And for things that people want to keep out of their life, lots of people don't want NSFW images on their phone, but they want easy access to all the apps they want. What is NSFW in one country could be totally fine in another country (e.g. images of people wearing tank tops or swimsuits).

by naet 4y ago

hnuser123456 4y ago

"The big default app stores are full of millions of crap apps trying to monetize you, and F-droid only has a few thousand high-quality open source apps created to actually benefit you" might be a little less roundabout, if not too on the nose. The censorship angle makes sense regarding app devs who complain about getting their app removed for unknown "policy violations", and the fact that a would-be malware dev would (hopefully) hesitate before publishing on an open-source repo is a positive type of curation/censorship.

woojoo666 4y ago

> The augment put forth is partly that an app store / hub not accepting all possible apps is a form of censorship, I believe they are saying that a _monopolistic_ app store that doesn't accept all apps is a form of censorship. And then the article (along with some comments in this thread) explain how Google Play and Apple App Store are monopolistic

eighthave 4y ago

It is not about scale as much as the possibility of getting apps from multiple sources. Each source can set its own curation policies, and each user can choose the sources they want. And for things that people want to keep out of their life, lots of people don't want NSFW images on their phone, but they want easy access to all the apps they want. What is NSFW in one country could be totally fine in another country (e.g. images of people wearing tank tops or swimsuits).