Comment by Kim_Bruning

It limits choice. I don’t have any experience building mobile apps because I didn’t want to buy into an unfair ecosystem. That means fewer mobile apps even if distribution networks change tomorrow.

> There's no law against a more democratic way to implement the broker either but it requires interesting methods of coordination and/or decision making that doesn't seem to exist yet?

It's not enough to not have a law against it, we need to have and enforce laws requiring it.

Oh! Classic Survivorship bias. You're only looking at the devs who went into business in the phone ecosystem in the first place. I'm thinking that they're there despite the barriers to entry ('shenanigans'), and the ones you encounter happen to be those who happen to place a higher value on 'other values'. As the ecosystem gets locked down more, this effect becomes stronger.

Meanwhile, you're not looking at those who left, or those who decided to never enter a broken market dominated by players convicted of monopolistic practices.

This seems much more intuitive than a hypothesis where somehow people would prefer to enter a closed market over a fair and open market with no barriers to entry.

Remember, monopolists succeed because they are distorting the market, not because they are in fact the most efficient competitor.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

I have been a computer user, developer and a system administrator for longer than I care to recount. I don't like Windows and I don't use it at work or home. But I do encounter it from time to time, and the experience is worse each time. The last time it happened, I couldn't figure out the way to skip/bypass the cloud account set up. Would it have been possible if I tried harder, starting with a web search? Perhaps. But there is no way an average system user is going to have the patience or often the skill necessary to do it. I'm not challenging their intelligence. But people have other priorities than to jump through a dozen hoops just to preserve privacy. I would do the same if I had to set up a Windows system for urgent work.

These sorts of hurdles exist to push more and more users to their favorite workflow until the dissenting voice is too feeble to notice when they finally pull the plug on the straightforward method. The intent is certainly there, since they are quite evidently boiling the frog. Just wait for the fine day when you wake up in the morning to see an HN story just like this one about Windows login as well.

Last I checked, Microsoft was trying to get rid of it.

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsoft-elim...

It's still possible to set up using only a local account, but who knows for how long.

A stepping stone on a path.

Have a login. Pin features to a login. Mandate a login but w/ backdoor. Close the back door. "It's a backdoor, why not use the front door?"

For now. History has shown that workarounds for defaults tend to stop working at some point.

Personally: the idea that a "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy has always seemed like bulllshit to me. The vast majority of reasoning for why the judiciary makes the decisions it does is because of "precedent". Slippery slope is how the world operates. It surfaces everywhere, and when the slope we're sliding down matters, like this one, we have to fight back with fervor. Google isn't doing this in a vacuum; they're doing this because there's precedent for it, and because all they want is to assert more power over the world.

Google's behavior is utterly and entirely disgusting, unacceptable, despicable, and dishonorable. Everyone who even glances near this decision should feel overwhelming shame. If you have a shred of political power to fight this internally, you are a failure to yourself, your customers, and the world if you choose to stay silent. They'll read comments like these and think "we're right, we're being brave", because they have convinced themselves that there is bravery in wielding overwhelming power against their users.

youre comparing the cold blooded murder of millions to googles play store policy? yeah, i think the comparison might be slightly dramatic

Nazi had to stop several times the euthanizing of handicapped and retarded because of the public backslash.

It worked because the majority of German doctors were full on board but there were talks of that way before nazi got in power.

I believe even in the USA there was program like sterilization of « degenerates » and « negro » At these times.

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-sterilisation-program-tri...

(Édit : After checking the source, these programs went on from 1929 so 4 years before nazi were elected, and lasted until 1974 !!!)

I’m not sure all of that is in any way comparable to a company abusing its monopolistic position to enforce rules that will benefit it.

What the hell?