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People have been voting with their wallets since forever, and look where it got us. The reality is that asking people to vote with their wallets does not work.

People have been voting with their wallets since forever, and look where it got us. The reality is that asking people to vote with their wallets does not work. But this specific case is even worse, because it's not possible to "vote with your wallet" to begin with. The specific things the blog post notes are "how terrible the experience of developing apps for the iPhone/iPad is, how Apple takes 30% of all app store and in-app purchases, how awful Xcode is as a development environment" So let's say you want to build a mobile app that actually reaches people. There's a duopoly, so you have to support Android and iOS. What are your options for "voting with your wallet" then? There's nothing you can buy that lets you reach iOS with your app without using Apple's ecosystem. "Voting with your wallet" is what people tell you to do if they don't want you to do the things that actually work, which, in this case, is regulation. We have two companies controlling both viable mobile platforms. There is nowhere else to go for 99.9% of people. You can have a billion dollars, and you still can't "vote with your wallet." You're still going to own either an iPhone or an Android phone, and support both if you want to publish an app. The obvious answer is that the two companies that control these platforms need to be regulated. Apple can play dumb if it's only Europe, but even so, the cracks are starting to show (e.g. Apple's recent copy/paste interoperability announcement). If the US joined in, the dam would break.

Kuyawa 2mo ago
You forgot Harmony OS from Huawei used by 50 million people, oh wait, no you can't vote on anything
- greenavocado 2mo ago
  Harmony OS is de-facto blacklisted by the American junta to prevent competition for their propaganda.
  - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
    Huawei can't sell fully functional phones anywhere outside of China, including in Europe. You need Google Mobile Services and the Google Play Store to be able to install stuff like your banking app, and the US government is preventing Huawei from shipping phones with it. China has its own app ecosystem, so they're fine locally but screwed everywhere else.
    - greenavocado 2mo ago
      My point precisely
  - SR2Z 2mo ago
    HarmonyOS is also a highly locked down OS with good support for the PRC to do the surveillance its domestic laws allow. Sure, the US can also surveil you through your phone, but in ways that are much better understood and subject to far more stringent regulations. I think there are lots of good reasons to discourage its use in the US beyond just "propaganda."
- ahartmetz 2mo ago
  That one is aligned with another totalitarian-lite country, not great.
Noaidi 2mo ago
Regulation is a part of it. But most of tehse companies make money off of the services. So if you want tos end Apple a message, cancel all your services...Music, iCloud, etc. Android phones are easy to use without a google account.
- zaik 2mo ago
  > easy to use without a google account I'm doing that and I had to get a second phone with a Google account just for banking and government apps. Not exactly easy I would say.
  - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
    Yeah, same. I have the phone I actually want, and then I have the phone I need because otherwise I couldn't function in society. It's workable but sometimes unpleasant, because I don't bring two phones with me, so I just can't do some things others can.
teeray 2mo ago
> You're still going to own either an iPhone or an Android phone Don’t forget that option C) “none of the above”, is no longer viable since we’ve reorganized the world around the smartphone. The analog alternatives for basic, vital life transactions are dwindling or eliminated in many circumstances.
casey2 2mo ago
Hiring someone to make an alternative. If your country makes labor difficult to buy then that's on your country, not Apple.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
  The apps you actually need to participate in society (digital IDs, banking apps, etc.) will never run on your homegrown OS. Having a billion dollars changes nothing about the fact that you need either iOS or a Google-blessed Android version.
  - iamnothere 2mo ago
    Then perhaps we should have regulations to ensure that social participation is not locked behind these gatekeepers. In particular, government and financial services should not require smartphones. Especially in an era when devices often require an “account” with the manufacturer that can be suspended or cancelled.
    - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
      Exactly.
  - SR2Z 2mo ago
    > The apps you actually need to participate in society (digital IDs, banking apps, etc.) will never run on your homegrown OS. This is a conscious decision that the authors of these apps are making and doesn't reflect any actual limitations. It's not actually important for my banking apps to be able to use my TPM; someone who takes a photo of a check (i.e. literally anyone I pay) can already withdraw money from my account. I can log in to my online banking page with just my username and password. The only reason why this happens is because: 1. Banks are very eager to avoid open APIs because they threaten their business 2. The minute decrease in fraud from requiring attestation is cheaper for banks. IMO we need serious and comprehensive reforms to prevent tech companies from just trampling all over user rights. It's MY bank account, why the hell do I need to go through Plaid or some other random third-party to programmatically read my balance?
flax 2mo ago
You're right that to deploy an app to Apple's app store you have to pay them. The $100/yr access ransom is unavoidable if you want to have the option of making money there. But I've gone to great lengths to avoid the rest of the stuff that genuinely sucks about building for Apple: I use Flutter to avoid most of the iOS nonsense. I use Android Studio on Linux for the vast majority of my development. I target Android/web/iOS and test mainly on the first two. I use codemagic.io to avoid having to have a mac to run ios builds. I did have to borrow a mac and use xcode to set up my project, I wish that weren't the case. I'd love to tell iOS users to just use the web version, but in-app purchases on web are a real headache compared to mobile and I haven't set up Stripe or equivalent. And Apple has crippled the web experience on iOS anyway with Safari. Does any of my approach "vote with my wallet"? No. It's just for me, to avoid the horrible experience of Apple to the extent possible while also reaching users that choose to use iOS.
iamnothere 2mo ago
“Regulating” in the current environment just means mandated coziness with intelligence and law enforcement: scanning your files (Chat Control 1.0), backdoors (Chat Control 2.0), suppression of ideas through mandatory moderation, age verification. What we need is antitrust enforcement, breaking of digital locks, and adversarial interoperability. This can be accomplished through certain forms of regulation, but you need to be specific or you’re going to get the bad kind of regulation.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
  It's pretty obvious from context and from the specific example what I'm talking about.
  - iamnothere 2mo ago
    Didn’t mean to criticize, I see the word “regulation” thrown around often here without any clarification, and sometimes the people using it don’t have our best interests in mind.
    - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
      Fair.

Kuyawa 2mo ago

You forgot Harmony OS from Huawei used by 50 million people, oh wait, no you can't vote on anything

greenavocado 2mo ago
Harmony OS is de-facto blacklisted by the American junta to prevent competition for their propaganda.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
  Huawei can't sell fully functional phones anywhere outside of China, including in Europe. You need Google Mobile Services and the Google Play Store to be able to install stuff like your banking app, and the US government is preventing Huawei from shipping phones with it. China has its own app ecosystem, so they're fine locally but screwed everywhere else.
  - greenavocado 2mo ago
    My point precisely
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  HarmonyOS is also a highly locked down OS with good support for the PRC to do the surveillance its domestic laws allow. Sure, the US can also surveil you through your phone, but in ways that are much better understood and subject to far more stringent regulations. I think there are lots of good reasons to discourage its use in the US beyond just "propaganda."
ahartmetz 2mo ago
That one is aligned with another totalitarian-lite country, not great.

Noaidi 2mo ago

Regulation is a part of it. But most of tehse companies make money off of the services. So if you want tos end Apple a message, cancel all your services...Music, iCloud, etc. Android phones are easy to use without a google account.

zaik 2mo ago
> easy to use without a google account I'm doing that and I had to get a second phone with a Google account just for banking and government apps. Not exactly easy I would say.
- InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
  Yeah, same. I have the phone I actually want, and then I have the phone I need because otherwise I couldn't function in society. It's workable but sometimes unpleasant, because I don't bring two phones with me, so I just can't do some things others can.

teeray 2mo ago

> You're still going to own either an iPhone or an Android phone Don’t forget that option C) “none of the above”, is no longer viable since we’ve reorganized the world around the smartphone. The analog alternatives for basic, vital life transactions are dwindling or eliminated in many circumstances.

casey2 2mo ago

Hiring someone to make an alternative. If your country makes labor difficult to buy then that's on your country, not Apple.

InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
The apps you actually need to participate in society (digital IDs, banking apps, etc.) will never run on your homegrown OS. Having a billion dollars changes nothing about the fact that you need either iOS or a Google-blessed Android version.
- iamnothere 2mo ago
  Then perhaps we should have regulations to ensure that social participation is not locked behind these gatekeepers. In particular, government and financial services should not require smartphones. Especially in an era when devices often require an “account” with the manufacturer that can be suspended or cancelled.
  - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
    Exactly.
- SR2Z 2mo ago
  > The apps you actually need to participate in society (digital IDs, banking apps, etc.) will never run on your homegrown OS. This is a conscious decision that the authors of these apps are making and doesn't reflect any actual limitations. It's not actually important for my banking apps to be able to use my TPM; someone who takes a photo of a check (i.e. literally anyone I pay) can already withdraw money from my account. I can log in to my online banking page with just my username and password. The only reason why this happens is because: 1. Banks are very eager to avoid open APIs because they threaten their business 2. The minute decrease in fraud from requiring attestation is cheaper for banks. IMO we need serious and comprehensive reforms to prevent tech companies from just trampling all over user rights. It's MY bank account, why the hell do I need to go through Plaid or some other random third-party to programmatically read my balance?

flax 2mo ago

You're right that to deploy an app to Apple's app store you have to pay them. The $100/yr access ransom is unavoidable if you want to have the option of making money there. But I've gone to great lengths to avoid the rest of the stuff that genuinely sucks about building for Apple: I use Flutter to avoid most of the iOS nonsense. I use Android Studio on Linux for the vast majority of my development. I target Android/web/iOS and test mainly on the first two. I use codemagic.io to avoid having to have a mac to run ios builds. I did have to borrow a mac and use xcode to set up my project, I wish that weren't the case. I'd love to tell iOS users to just use the web version, but in-app purchases on web are a real headache compared to mobile and I haven't set up Stripe or equivalent. And Apple has crippled the web experience on iOS anyway with Safari. Does any of my approach "vote with my wallet"? No. It's just for me, to avoid the horrible experience of Apple to the extent possible while also reaching users that choose to use iOS.

iamnothere 2mo ago

“Regulating” in the current environment just means mandated coziness with intelligence and law enforcement: scanning your files (Chat Control 1.0), backdoors (Chat Control 2.0), suppression of ideas through mandatory moderation, age verification. What we need is antitrust enforcement, breaking of digital locks, and adversarial interoperability. This can be accomplished through certain forms of regulation, but you need to be specific or you’re going to get the bad kind of regulation.

InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
It's pretty obvious from context and from the specific example what I'm talking about.
- iamnothere 2mo ago
  Didn’t mean to criticize, I see the word “regulation” thrown around often here without any clarification, and sometimes the people using it don’t have our best interests in mind.
  - InsideOutSanta 2mo ago
    Fair.