Comment by protimewaster

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.