Exactly, as a user I'm not going to be happy if I have to resort to using an unscrupulous third party App Store with fewer privacy restrictions in order to get the app I need.

There's also the possibility of mobile equivalents to the Adobe CC installer/manager that act as their own "App Store" and aren't subject to any rules at all, which is even worse. After seeing what the likes of Adobe does on desktop PCs, I do not want to see what they do when granted effectively unfettered access to my phone.

Allowing alternate sources of apps is not at all the same thing as allowing apps to do whatever they wish on your device. iOS apps would still be sandboxed and heavily restricted. In-app privacy would be unchanged.

Apple should have the ability to "shut off" unscrupulous third-party App Stores just as they do today with unscrupulous developers.

Adobe would find it tough going if they withdrew from Apple's App Store, and I can't imagine keeping 30% minus whatever it costs to provide an alternative would be worth it to the, given how many people would just stop using Adobe apps.

So Apple still needs to be responsible for content of third party stores? The stores should require Apple code signing to allow remote shut down and be complaints about items in non Apple stores reviewed by Apple for unscrupulous behavior? Sound like a waste of battery where like Mac and Windows a constant malware checker would be required at the OS level.

If you spend your time looking for ways to insist that the status quo is easiest, then yes, you'll find ways to insist that the status quo is easiest.

Like I said, I'm only now coming around on this, but I think a $2T company with total control of both hardware and software can probably work out a way to support additional stores without requiring a full-time battery-draining malware checker. In fact, I suspect most of us could figure out how to avoid that if we tried, rather than trying the opposite.

Sandboxing and limited APIs already exist, Apple doesn't need to review apps that don't appear in their App Store. As I've said, I suspect a very small percentage of people would be willing to install additional stores, and they can hardly complain if it turns out apps purchased there overshare PII.

That is the whole purpose of a free economy. It's a race to the bottom only as long as the customer needs are satisfied with the product, which is exactly what's good for society. Sure you might have several stores, so what? It's like saying there should only be one car dealership because dealerships take too much space and it's not convenient to go in many places to check cars.

A "race to the bottom" that only impacts price means the customer wins. But the important point (which often goes unsaid) when people speak of a race to the bottom is that they are concerned that position in that race will be earned by sacrificing things that matter.

That may or may not be the case, but I expect it'll be more fruitful to address it.

Keeping 90% of a tiny pile of money is usually not a better deal than keeping 70% of a large pile of money.

Cydia has existed for ages, and yet Apple's own App Store is still the undisputed market leader.

I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario in which consumers lose here.