Comment by protimewaster
1 day ago
I've had some thoughts in a similar vein, but I was thinking from a privacy perspective. The Google and Apple arguments for the walled gardens basically boil down to "You can't trust other stores to protect your privacy and security", but the obvious counter-argument to that is that other stores may actually be able to focus more on privacy and security than the walled gardens do.
Apple and Google inevitably have limited privacy protections, because they'd probably run off Meta and a bunch of other really popular / in-demand apps and cut into their own bottom-line if they really cracked down. In contrast, a third party store may be more free to only host apps that are more privacy-oriented or have been security audited, etc.
Look, to be blunt about it I think what Apple did to Facebook was a necessary evil, they (Facebook) seemed to buy Whatsapp as purely a way to entrench their network effects, get access to phone numbers and contacts etc, and their data hoovering practices are so severe that they tried to pin their own certificate (or something like that, I'm hazy on the details)
I get the Apple skepticism, I'm not happy with some of what they do, I think it's contentious when app stores ban something like Parler, but fine-grained granularity is something we kind of desperately need
Let's not forget this data hoovering, where they set up some bullshit local http server on Android that lets them track you even in private mode
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115#44170000
Arguments in this day and age are soldiers[1], at least when they come from powerful people: (if you're a corporation or a government) they are things you send to fight for you. You don't have to actually believe them, and the most effective ones are often not ones that are true.
[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/w/arguments-as-soldiers