Comment by irusensei
5 days ago
Personally I wouldn’t install software unless it were from a really trusted person doing something extremely unique and useful that doesn’t have an alternative on the Apple Store (think UTM with JIT for iPad).
Please don’t take that as a negative comment but I suspect most people source their software from conveniently centralized repos whether it be App Store, Steam or even the main package manager on a Linux distribution.
Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so.
The point is that the OP is not free to do so.
>Great, and you are free to do so and will continue to be free to do so.
Not necessarily, once other channels are available developers could choose to force their clients down that road.
If they have sufficient market power to force consumers to do anything, they should also be subject to antitrust.
Most and mostly.
But I'd still like to be able to install whatever the fuck I want on my iPhone, should I decide to based on my own criteria, without going through Apple or even a fucking "alternative app store" that is still Apple censored.
The point is that it becomes your choice. For example some people might choose to use a different web browser instead of Safari on their Apple device so they can use some web apps fully and not have to install similar local apps at all.
You mentioned linux package managers, these existing are proof enough that a 30% cut isn't required for ensuring the safety of what you install. In fact, I'd wager there is that much more dangerous garbage in the app store than in pacman's database.
The Linux package repositories take a 30% cut of zero. If the software wasn't free, it would be entirely reasonable for them to demand a cut
I can install Jetbrains via most linux package managers, launch it, and pay money. I can install steam and pay for games. I can install sublime text and give em cash.
Arch linux doesn't try to take 30% of all the games I buy on steam, nor does it prevent steam from asking me for my credit card.
Apple reviews all apps to make sure they don't ask for your credit card, don't tell you where you can buy the same good online, and make sure that if you do sell anything, apple gets its 30% cut, even if it's a virtual store like steam. That's the reason you can't buy kindle books on iOS (even though you can buy apple books? Weird? Isn't that illegal anti-competitive behavior?)
It would absolutely not be reasonable for linux package managers to demand that I pay 30% more for all games on steam if I did "pacman -Sy steam" vs downloading steam from valve's website and figuring out how to get it working on arch-linux (taking the deb, extracting it with 'ar', and installing some dependencies)
On Android there's a repository called F-Droid which offers free software. Apple won't let anyone create a FOSS repo like that for iOS.
As much as I think Apple's cut is unreasonable, I think all this shows is that people are making a lot more dangerous software for apple's larger less tech savvy userbase than for arch's.