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I personally see an unmoderated app store as more detrimental to the end users. The harm happens at scale.

jonathanstrange 9mo ago
When there were many different app stores to choose from, nobody would be forced to use an unmoderated app store. What happened to individual freedom and responsibility?
- verdverm 9mo ago
  I would need to see a widely used and trusted 3rd party store before leaving Google Play became a consideration. I'm interested, but not an early adopter. It's also unclear if any store that reaches this point doesn't institute similar moderation techniques. Scale incentivizes bad actors, which in turn requires good moderation.
InsideOutSanta 9mo ago
That's the status quo, though. Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are essentially unmoderated. The sheer scale of them and both platforms' technical architectures prohibits either company from properly validating their stores' contents - they can't even catch the easy cases, like all the apps that impersonate ChatGPT. The main thing they manage to do is inconvenience innocent indie devs once in a while. The result is unwarranted trust from users in stores that are full of scams. Apple and Google effectively built malware pipelines under the guise of security.
- verdverm 9mo ago
  Why do you expect another app store to be different? At what scales do the dynamics of what you have described change?
  - pona-a 9mo ago
    F-Droid does not contain malware. There were cases of maintainers going rogue, such as Simple apps being bought by an adware firm, which resulted in a timely takedown, directing users to a maintained fork Fossify. Like a distro repository, the user safety comes not from reactive moderation but active curation. Meanwhile my parents are getting hammered by inescapable malvertisements from Google, a TTS voice ordering them to install a "cleaner" app or have their phone die, no matter how many you report or what knobs you touch under ad personalization. Facebook knew 20% of their yearly revenue was scams and intentionally deferred moderator action to keep that business. All this "trust" is so overwhelming, the only way to make our computing more trusted is if OEM auto-installed the malware themselves. Oh wait, Samsung does that!
    - verdverm 9mo ago
      It doesn't seem as clear as you portray https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/ https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/
      - pona-a 8mo ago
        Yes, F-Droid has some security issues with PKI/outdated dependencies. But never malware. The first is a technical problem that can be fixed with one or two NL-Net projects, the second is a fundamental misalignment of incentives.

When there were many different app stores to choose from, nobody would be forced to use an unmoderated app store. What happened to individual freedom and responsibility?

verdverm 9mo ago
I would need to see a widely used and trusted 3rd party store before leaving Google Play became a consideration. I'm interested, but not an early adopter. It's also unclear if any store that reaches this point doesn't institute similar moderation techniques. Scale incentivizes bad actors, which in turn requires good moderation.

InsideOutSanta 9mo ago

That's the status quo, though. Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store are essentially unmoderated. The sheer scale of them and both platforms' technical architectures prohibits either company from properly validating their stores' contents - they can't even catch the easy cases, like all the apps that impersonate ChatGPT. The main thing they manage to do is inconvenience innocent indie devs once in a while. The result is unwarranted trust from users in stores that are full of scams. Apple and Google effectively built malware pipelines under the guise of security.

verdverm 9mo ago
Why do you expect another app store to be different? At what scales do the dynamics of what you have described change?
- pona-a 9mo ago
  F-Droid does not contain malware. There were cases of maintainers going rogue, such as Simple apps being bought by an adware firm, which resulted in a timely takedown, directing users to a maintained fork Fossify. Like a distro repository, the user safety comes not from reactive moderation but active curation. Meanwhile my parents are getting hammered by inescapable malvertisements from Google, a TTS voice ordering them to install a "cleaner" app or have their phone die, no matter how many you report or what knobs you touch under ad personalization. Facebook knew 20% of their yearly revenue was scams and intentionally deferred moderator action to keep that business. All this "trust" is so overwhelming, the only way to make our computing more trusted is if OEM auto-installed the malware themselves. Oh wait, Samsung does that!
  - verdverm 9mo ago
    It doesn't seem as clear as you portray https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/ https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/
    - pona-a 8mo ago
      Yes, F-Droid has some security issues with PKI/outdated dependencies. But never malware. The first is a technical problem that can be fixed with one or two NL-Net projects, the second is a fundamental misalignment of incentives.