4 ms·

This crap is why everyone should fear the Apple-like centralisation for software distribution options that other companies like Google and Microsoft are inching

This crap is why everyone should fear the Apple-like centralisation for software distribution options that other companies like Google and Microsoft are inching towards. Now it's just Iran/Cuba/North Korea, but you're essentially letting the increasingly aggressive American government decide who can or cannot publish software. The Americans are not afraid of adding their political enemies from allied countries to the sanction list, as can be seen when they decided to go after the judge in the Israel genocide case. Who knows who will be next now that they're blatantly cracking down on free speech. The Apple app store/Google Play/Microsoft Store are great conveniences, but they must never be the only way to access software on your device. Apple's EU exception falls short for still requiring an Apple account to pay fees that no judge will accept when the first lawsuit hits. Sure, Epic Games has offered to pay those fees just to spite Apple, but Epic can only pay those fees to people they're allowed to pay.

jbstack 1y ago
I completely agree, but what can actually be done about this? It feels like it's too late.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Well, the EU has about half a billion people, India and China about 1.5 billion people - all larger markets (by headcount) than the US domestic market, so nothing that any American company can just choose to ignore. Either of these three markets can set rules on what device manufacturers have to do in order to be allowed to access the market, and they all use that power - China is particularly infamous (with Apple having had to set up a dedicated iCloud instance to which the Chinese government may or may not have a backdoor), India more focuses on the share of production that happens in China, and the EU is seriously tightening the screws on American companies when it comes to arbitrarily denying store access.

jbstack 1y ago

I completely agree, but what can actually be done about this? It feels like it's too late.

mschuster91 1y ago
Well, the EU has about half a billion people, India and China about 1.5 billion people - all larger markets (by headcount) than the US domestic market, so nothing that any American company can just choose to ignore. Either of these three markets can set rules on what device manufacturers have to do in order to be allowed to access the market, and they all use that power - China is particularly infamous (with Apple having had to set up a dedicated iCloud instance to which the Chinese government may or may not have a backdoor), India more focuses on the share of production that happens in China, and the EU is seriously tightening the screws on American companies when it comes to arbitrarily denying store access.