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Until some apps are not in the App Store or a website is chromium-compatible only… Or that apps (e.g. youtube) outside the App Store is surprisingly more feature-complete than the equivalent in the App Store…

Don’t worry they’ll find a way to make it socially mandatory (the same way not having a google account nowadays seems impossible (I don’t personally but still do because of work for instance)).

2 comments

And if you don't trust an app vendor without Apple's underpaid Chinese reviewers playing with it on an iPad for 5 minutes to guarantee your safety, then don't use those apps that pull out of the App Store. If YouTube or FB pull out of Apple's App Store and go to their own, Apple will have to cut it's hosting fees to get them back or lose that business and you'll suffer not because Google and FB pulled out of the App Store but because Apple pushed them out with exorbitant fees. You should want Apple facing that threat because it'll lead to lower App Store prices as developers won't pad a $5 app with $1.50 in extra cost to you to cover the exorbitant Apple fees. But you'd rather blame users who want to run what ever software they want on the computers they purchased than blame Apple's shitty business practices. That's on you, bud.

> And if you don't trust an app vendor without Apple's underpaid Chinese reviewers

This misses the mark so badly that it’s not even worth reading the rest.

App Review is based out of Sunnyvale and has more than 300 people that make on average $85k/y in their first few years, and mostly over $100k/y after three years.

Long tenured people, the ones that last more than 5 years and are advancing towards a decade of doing the work get close to $200k/y with some exceptions over that number.

Many of those 300 people are multilingual, some specialize in a specific language, but to expand and better serve non-English markets, Apple recently opened a branch in Ireland and one in Shanghai.

The latter mainly focusing on the Chinese market and the one in Ireland specializing in European languages and supplementing the English market.

Once again there are alternatives; nobody forced anybody to buy iPhones.

It’s not like Apple lied at any point saying “buy our phones and do whatever you want on them!” No. It’s clear. You do what they want. In what name should they be forced to “open” it to anybody?

What’s next? Force google to make their map data open? How would that go? It’s mostly the same thing.

You might want to familiarize yourself with the last 200 years of industrial evolution.

Spoiler: companies have been forced to do all sorts of things they really didn't want to do, and it often went fairly well for society at large.

Wait, children aren't forced to work in death factories anymore?!?!

Huh, guess it's just Foxconn then.

To be blunt, Apple, Google, and other tech megacorps should be glad that we as a society allow them to exist in the first place, even despite growing to the size where they are clearly hindering free market (by actively blocking competition). Never forget that corporations are artificial entities chartered by governments; and nobody has a natural right to a corporate charter, so those can and should come with hefty strings attached.

And nobody is forcing you to do anything.

I have no idea what your argument is here. That people shouldn't advocate for greater competition in the marketplace just because they already bought a phone?

It's not at all the same thing? Also there's a more apt comparison, which is forcing Google to make Android open and allow alternative app stores (oh wait, they already do).

App stores are a natural monopoly. An app store with more users attracts more developers. An app store with more apps attracts more users. It has a strong network effect and economies of scale. Natural monopolies should be regulated to prevent abuse by the first companies that capture wide market share.

Well, just don't use those apps, then, or use their website.

Yet somehow, when people suggest not to use an iPhone but instead an alternative device, that’s not an acceptable argument to many.

Funny how that works.