> most people just want a safe app store
We already have an example of how users behave when there's a platform that has a default app store and the ability to install others: only a tiny fraction of Android users sideload apps at all, much less install other stores. Users who don't want to think about which app stores are safe simply won't; they'll use the default one.
It derrives profit from iphones being relatively secure, which in practise means making it difficult for average users to install stupid things like malware.
Just because corporate overlords have a profit motive, doesn't mean it can't overlap with more alturustic motives. Being an evil villian typically pays well in the short term but not the long term (plenty of exceptions)
If you are comparing the difference between having a company in charge of public health and a democratic government, you might as well compare the difference between a dictatorship and a democracy. Customers are not stakeholders in the same way that citizens are stakeholders.
When the public is angry at the government, heads will roll. When the public is angry at corporations, heads will glide down in golden parachutes.
That's hardly true. People are rarely angry enough for heads to roll, and almost never that angry at corporations. But if they are that angry, heads have certainly rolled at corporations. Most of the time, nothing happens when people are angry at govs, and if they are angry enough for heads to roll, its more likely to be the people's heads than the government's.
It's why i'm pro-big-government, but also very heavy handed about what i want to see with government transparency and power dynamics.
Apple has broken incentives here. Otherwise they would approve third party apps that compete with their own.
If you think restaurants and food safety is a good analogy it’s not a good argument for Apple in my opinion.
Now imagine there’s a very popular restaurant, but it uses an inspector you don’t know if you trust. But you want to eat the food because all your friends are already there… so you’ll go.
This is exactly what would happen— various companies once they reach a certain size will just want to have their own store because either it makes them more money or they have less restrictions. Just look at Facebook and the new 14.5 privacy features that are cutting into their ability to collect data. If you let FB the chance to pull out, they’d do it in a heartbeat knowing they could easily force everyone to install their App Store… which would have 0 privacy restrictions and far less oversight (just look at the Cambridge Analytica scandal for how FB might run an App Store).
Given Apple mostly makes money selling hardware, they’re the best incentivized to protect its user base.
Disclaimer: I work for Apple but all views my own.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
This would generalize that and allow them to sideload for everyone. They straight-up would pull out of the app store, block Safari users from the website, and force everyone to sideload a tracker build on day 1.
I don't understand how people can come up with these crazy hypotheticals when Android has allowed side-loading since forever.
I'm not saying the hypothetical is likely to happen, but your argument makes absolutely no sense in this case.
People can still use the Apple app store if they want to, I guess the key thing here is they don't really though, they would rather save a bit of money. Or at least that is what everyone here (well at least Apple I guess) thinks.
And the want to eat with your friends argument is also not good I think, I can't see why crossplay would not work regardless of which store you bought the app/game in.
Sadly, it looks like they’re trying to diversify away from this, and every time they do we see misaligned incentives that cause them to do the wrong things.
And on a more base level, Apple has overplayed their hand for far too long for me to be very sympathetic to their arguments. The app store is still loaded with scams, they still deny things for arbitrary and inconsistent reasons with little-to-no explanation, and they've had years to clean this up. It's not 2007 anymore.
Apple isn't acting in good faith. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Make the unlocking process something equivalent to rooting a modern android device (something that requires PC software, terminal commands, a number of steps on the phone, and a data wipe - i.e. something absolutely nobody will do accidentally and vanishingly few will do just because Facebook told them to) and both concerns are allayed.
This isn't some dichotomy, and treating it as such is playing right into the hands of the tech corps. This "for your own protection" thing is marketing. We already know that no principles are in play. Besides, mitigating forced obsolescence (and so, e-waste, carbon footprint, etc) is more important than Facebook getting another data point from a minority of users, and this can be addressed legislatively anyways.
I trust the government to impose regulation on food manufacturers but I trust vendors with their selection of manufacturers. Why should the store landscape on iOS be any different where I put my trust in the store?
This would actually mirror my food shopping as well. I trust my vendor, why would this not translate to store operators on the OS? Aside from the fact that Google and Apple have done a piss poor job with this... I'm fairly certain I would trust Epic, Valve or MS (or even EA and Ubi).
The issue is compounded by imagining that the food safety board ran its own restaurant. It then closes down the cafe next door for unhygenic practices. Looks pretty bad right? That's the situation Apple will be in every time it has to make a call on something like this.
Imagine if there were 10 inspection groups, but sometimes they get bought by corrupt investors who let standards slide while pocketing the extra profit, and consumers constantly have to stay on top of which food inspection groups are the current OK ones and which aren't, and restaurants can't afford to get inspected by all 10 so they only do 2 but then people who only trust another 2 won't go there at all even though the food's fine, meanwhile the most trustworthy group jacks up prices for restaurants like crazy because restaurants know they have no choice...
It would be a nightmare. There's a reason that literally no country does this, that food safety is virtually universally considered to be a basic function of modern government.
A thriving market in marijuana has existed your entire life. It works exactly this way.
Countless examples. PC hardware. Vaping. Yelp.
It's fine. Which is lucky: who watches the watchers?
You want real-time feedback without perverse incentives. Only customers can provide it.
Much like a government can create quality standards and then outsource parts of its missions to private sector.
Then don't use those other apps stores.
I think that people who care about all this stuff, can very easily just continue to use the Apple app store.
Well, because Apple's behavior is illegally anti-competitive, and it is possible for everyone to get what they want.
You can simply not install other app stores, and other people can get what they want, if Apple is forced to allow other people to install other app stores, because their illegal anti-competitive behavior is stopped.
You should not care, if other people install whatever they want, on the phone that they own.
Because you can simply choose to not use those app stores. Problem solved, and everyone wins.
> The status quo should remain
Actually, a better solution is for Apple's illegally anti-competitive behavior to be stopped, by allowing other people to install what they want on the iPhone if they choose to do so.
Second, I shouldn't have to remind you how well competing regulators worked for the financial sector
Basically, I think something needs doing, but this ain't it. Maybe Apple need their cut cut. They make enough damn money. You could take their cut down to 5% and they'd still be raking it in by the truckload
They’re not. There are very easy ways to recognize a trustworthy store. We’re doing that every single day for things we actually ingest.
Apple can impose standards, limit access, etc without obliging all developers to only go through their store. E.g. already now Apple has no way to guarantee what the company providing an app does with the user data.
Therefore in my head when almost nobody was creating a decent App store and Apple did just that, there would not have been really any competitors at the time for Apple to consider opening up to.
If you create something that nobody else did, then years later when other industries create a similar product based on the success of yours. It seems silly to then be questioned about why you've never opened up to integrating with others. It is blatantly obvious that Apple have the better app store otherwise we wouldn't be complaining about the amount of leverage they have within the market. If Apple's app store was tiny and was filled with terrible ad ridden apps, we wouldn't be having this discussion in court, they would have gone out of business.
If there were no food regulations, I don't know if I'd be able to pick restaurants and grocery store brands that were safe to eat.
But I definitely know I want safe food to eat.
Most people want safe food but they want the government to figure out what that means.
Same thing here -- most people just want a safe app store. They don't want the work of having to figure out which app stores are how safe. They just want Apple to figure that out for them.