Great, and then we can properly break up Facebook as well as Google. I see no downsides here.

Why should we have to let things get worse. Break up Meta and Google and MS and then talk to me about how we don't need Apple's store anymore. Don't remove the solution and then tell me you'll fix the problem later.

This same argument can be used to block any action, forever. We have to start somewhere, and here is good enough.

So you do see downsides but you are personally willing to live with them?

It’s hard to believe this question was asked in good faith. What did they write that makes you think they admitted to there being downsides?

The commenter started by saying they didn't see any downsides. Someone replied referring to specific downsides which impacted them (""use Meta omni-permission store or get cut off from FB/IG/WhatsApp"). Then the commenter said downsides don't matter because they can be used to argue against any change. That's a different argument than where they started.

> "use Meta omni-permission store or get cut off from FB/IG/WhatsApp"

They replied to the comment which said this and wrote, "I see no downsides." I don’t see where they admitted to the downsides.

That's not the comment I replied to. I replied to the comment where they offered no argument for why someone else's downside was invalid, instead opting to say that it's better to not let downsides prevent action. The lack of argument implied they didn't have a response, which I sought to confirm.

Nope, no downsides.

You can believe whatever you want, but try not to impose it on others.

Likely they use Android, but are upset other people are using their devices wrong. So, to them, what downsides?

I mean… literally every complex judgement call in human history comes down to this answer; real life is mostly made of imperfect options with various tradeoffs.

"This is a complex judgment call, and I think forcing side loading is a reasonable conclusion in light of varied impacts" is a very different point of view than "I don't see any downsides."

>Break up Meta and Google and MS...

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Break them? More likely they'll continue their business as usual, with a slightly increased lobbying spending.

And yet somehow Apple hasn't managed to lobby this away, despite having more cash on hand than either Facebook or Google.

Apple has never been as big in lobbying as those are. Or as cooperative with various governments and state agencies.

Plus, they have those angles covered by token "open" BS like Android allowing sideloading, despite having total dominance on far more crucial for consumers and the economy in general areas that their OS, leaving Apple to be targeted.

According to Statista, Google spent $10.92 million on lobbying in 2022, whereas Apple spent $9.36 million.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1043061/lobbying-expense...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/277063/lobbying-expenses...

Please free yourself from going to bat for a company that wouldn't care if you lived or died.

Okay? No one thinks they would. We're in a business transaction.

Maybe people are going to bat for their own interests and recognize they align with the interests of a company they happily buy products from. Who are you to deny their preferences?

Those are the over the table numbers.

>Please free yourself from going to bat for a company that wouldn't care if you lived or died.

I care if my prefered mobile OS were to allow any kind of crap. How about that? Mind blown?

Apple spends very little money lobbying.

I don't see what breaking up Google or Facebook accomplishes, it changes absolutely nothing for consumers.

It changes at least one thing; now there is Google1 and Google2 and FB1 and FB2 and they offer the same services to different prices.

Now the consumer can chose between more competitors.

Almost every item you buy online has some Google 'tax' baked in. That alone isn't a problem, but since Google controls almost the entire ad market, there isn't any competition pushing that tax down. Notice the similarity to the App Store arguments?

If Google and YouTube were split up, I could see a future where both start competing for text and video search against each other. This competition would drive down ad rates across both platforms. It would also allow space for other competitors to come in.

Yes, please, let's do this. And Amazon too.

In general; let's take that whole monopoly thing serious again, together with regulatory capture.

I'm no free market liberal, quite the contrary. But competition is *good* and we should have more competition between these huge companies that basically make a living from extracting rent.

> I'm no free market liberal, quite the contrary. But competition is good

You sound at least a little bit as though you understand markets, though!

I strive to learn.

With markets I see it similarly as with democracy; it's the best of all the bad options we have. Given the challenges ahead (demographic crisis, climate crisis, environmental crisis) we must have a dynamic and flexible system to accommodate the to be expected strains, if we want to continue existing as a global civilization.

But markets also have flaws, such as externalization of costs and oligopolies that skew the market through their influence.

We've seen this with Google, that has started as a brilliant search engine, providing a valuable service. Nowadays it attempts to make more and more money through rent taking instead. Instead of creating value, these oligopolies capture value, sometimes even through illegal means (see; no-poaching agreements).

I've never installed the Meta omni-permission store on my Android, but I've certainly installed Facebook's applications via the Play Store.

I'm not sure why the situation would be any different with iOS. It seems to me that the app store would still utterly dominate even if it were exposed to competition.

Google's Play Store allows Meta apps more permissions than Apple's App Store currently does.

Meta lost tens of billions in market value (and an estimated $10 billion a year in revenue) when the new Apple App Store privacy rules went into effect. That's a powerful incentive.

Yes, Apple is pretty good about privacy. That'll be one reason for Meta and others to create their own stores.

Valve, Epic Games, and Nintendo seem better about privacy but are barred from iOS.

Does Valve or the Epic Games store have a privacy policy they enforce on products they sell? I didn't think so. How are they "better about privacy"?

Also, Nintendo products and Fortnight both were in the App Store store.

Valve and Nintendo are barred from iOS in what way? I have the Steam Link app on my iPad, and there are several Nintendo games in the App Store.

Steam cannot distribute apps on ios.

Steam doesn’t distribute apps on Android either? Is it even something they’d want to do?

I'm sure they'd love to - someone else pays for the ecosystem, and they just sell software in it with no markup (or they keep the markup, rather than the ecosystem creator).

I would argue that apple doesn't do this for the good of the users, apples own apps are not restricted in the same way others are. The whole point is giving their own apps an edge over everyone else. This is what gives apple the power to demand deals like the recently covered deal with Google that gave them billions in search revenue.

And just by pure coincidence, Apple started to push much more of their ads in their App Store around that time.

The incentive for Meta, etc to start their own “anything goes” app stores was low when it was a possibility only on Android. It being possible on iOS changes the equation significantly with how iOS users are typically higher value targets due to how on average, they buy/spend more.

It also gives them the opportunity to normalize per-megacorp app stores across the board instead of them always being a weird Android thing like they be if Meta opened an App Store on Android now.

I'm sure it'll be a weird iOS thing too if it happens. Apple is going to make it as difficult as they possibly can, the same way sideloading is not trivial on Android for normal users.

Also running a third party store does not have to mean being able to break privacy protections. If the ecosystem relies on app inspections that much it simply needs to be secured better.

> If the ecosystem relies on app inspections that much it simply needs to be secured better.

How do you secure something without inspection? We have health code inspections for restaurants, car safety and emissions inspections, IAEA inspectors visiting nuclear facilities… Should we throw all those out too? What replaces them, the goodwill and word of people?

The ostrich is saying that the technical sandbox controls of the is will still be present.

Those will never be good enough to overcome social engineering.

The OP... The technical controls of the OS...

Autocorrect and a lack of editing are a bad combo.

In this analogy, getting to design the system on which the apps run is something like being able to alter the local laws of physics so that car exhaust simply can't contain pollution.

What I mean is, the OS should not allow apps to do these things. Rather than inspecting the code and strictly banning any dynamic code (one of the reasons emulators are not allowed), the apps should just not be allowed to do things like call hidden APIs at OS level.

They don’t read the code afaik; they prevent memory page being marked both write and execute (with an exception for javascriptcore specifically).

W^X pages are one of the most widespread sources of RCE bugs, and banning them by default is a good idea.

> If the ecosystem relies on app inspections that much it simply needs to be secured better.

How likely is this when Apple aren't getting paid for apps any more? Who should pay for it?

No what I mean is that regardless of the apps that run, there should be no way to circumvent it. The OS should enforce this.

It's not always that simple. What if I make an app that asks for some data from you "for it to function", and then posts that data to somewhere it shouldn't, there's not a lot to be done about that from an OS enforcement perspective.

If you're posting on Hacker News you're not likely the one most vulnerable to Meta's tactics.

Permissions can be baked into OS. No matter how the app is installed you'll get same popups confirming them. Though it should be also applicable to Apple apps.

It not “can be”, it is baked into ios, almost everything runs in a proper sandbox, including apple’s own apps. (iMessage doesn’t have complete isolation though, due to it being special regarding SMS - that’s why many attacks target it specifically).

Why wouldn't the OS still have privacy controls?

Why hasn't Meta had any luck doing that on Android?

That would be amazing, because people will finally leave these apps for good. See videogame case about corpos leaving Steam for their own inferior walled gardens and failing spectacularly.