As a famous example of a popular app that eventually caved into Google's demands is Fortnite [1] and children are tech savvy (or at least motivated) enough to install from outside the app store. If Fortnite couldn't do it, then no, it's not easy to imagine TikTok doing it, especially given TikTok's market share is made of mobile users mostly, so no PC, no PS 4, no Xbox.

There are indeed alternative app stores from Samsung, Amazon, maybe others, however Google's Play absolutely dominates the Android ecosystem.

I'm an iOS user myself, however this whole reasoning is bullshit. The only reason Apple keeps such a tight control is because they want to keep that 30% commission on all sales, which is highway robbery. And I also suspect them of wanting to have enough reason and leverage to get rid of any app that threatens their own products.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/21/epic-games-launches-fortni...

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Also the elephant in the room is the web.

I see grownups and children alike using the web successfully all the time. The web can be secure without a gatekeeper because browsers do a reasonable job at sandboxing. In fact it is the competitive nature of the market that makes it secure, consider that's how extensions and ad blockers happened (in the meantime I still don't have a browser on iOS capable of using uBlock Origin).

And yes the web has dark corners, yet we live with it just fine. Look, we're having this conversation on a web page that's not gated by Apple and we're still alive.

In particular Tencent is notorious for not being the default app store on any phones, but somehow "mysteriously" if you follow links from WeChat or QQ or even certain websites, it will try to make your phone download the Tencent app store to install the app instead of just using your phone's default app store. Even your phone gives a warning not to do it, people still install it. And, sure enough, Tencent app store is now the biggest app store in China, with 25% of the market.

Tiktok is owned by Bytedance, which doesn't even have an app store in China, so i can't see them making a play.

Fortnite, on the other other hand, is owned by Epic who definitely used the popularity and income from Fortnite to leverage their way into the PC gaming marketplace, disrupting the major player (Valve). They might not have won this battle for the phone marketplace, but by the sounds of it they still haven't given up the war.

So, i do think it's fair for the grandparent poster to consider a future where users bypass whatever protections came from their phone manufacturer and end up shooting themselves in the foot. But i also think you're right that it doesn't matter. That's the "price of freedom".

We already see it a little bit now where some people choose Android over iOS (or vice versa) for ideological reasons. Loosening manufacturer restrictions even further seems reasonable to me. Some people would choose ultra-safety through open source, others would choose to use closed source from a company they consider trustworthy. Most would not care and just use whatever environment they are most familiar with, and install whatever plugins and cleaners they need to make them feel more secure. That's basically the PC market right now, and i think it's largely fine.

I hear this line about their business model all the time, however it is bullshit. Given the opportunity all companies will take the money. And I fear that it is nothing more than a conspiracy theory, without much evidence, much like anti-vaxxing.

Google these days is a very big target. The EU would love to have reason to slap them with another fine, given all the legal tax evasion they've been doing. Yet they've always been transparent about what they collect and have always been responsible with user data (versus Facebook).

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the privacy features of my iPhone, it always fared better than Android in that regard, but it has nothing to do with Apple's tight grip of its App Store.

And Google Play takes a 30% commission too ;-)

It's a large amount, even for Apple, but they would survive losing that. Besides that, they are even taunting Google by putting DuckDuckGo in their marketing copy:

https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur-preview/

They also started a partnership with them in 2019:

https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-maps-gooses-duckduckgo-in-se...

I think they are slowly preparing to loosen that tie.

I hear this line about their business model all the time, however it is bullshit. Given the opportunity all companies will take the money.

I agree. Apple's incentives are just temporarily aligned with customer's privacy. Their margins on hardware, services, etc. are so large that they can afford to make privacy a differentiator. If they are not in that comfortable position anymore, they would monetize the vast user data trove.

But while this is the status quo, I am happy to use an iPhone for privacy.

Please, they are not going to leave $10 billion per year on the table.

They could, but they're absolutely not going to. Every barrier you put between and user and installing your app is a percentage of those installs that you're losing. Doubly so for "non technical" users, who can barely work the app store in the first place. No company of that size is going to lose that many downloads just to steal a few more downloads.

>then I realised that probably most Android users have those horrible carrier and OEM locked-down devices that make it harder (if not impossible) to change system settings or add other app-stores.

Stock android makes you jump through hoops to install third party apps, and for good reason. No, it's not because "OEM locked-down devices", the reason you don't see it on android is because it doesn't make business sense.

They'll simply annoy you to hell and not let you use the app until you've granted permanent location permissions.