Comment by ryandrake
8 hours ago
> If I buy an iPhone, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that necessarily involves a relationship with the app store provider (ie. Apple)
This is only true because Apple dictates it to be so. The manufacturer of the device should not have a say in what I choose to do with a device I bought. I should be able to install software on a device without asking the manufacturer for permission. Why do they think they should have an opinion? After I purchase the device, it's mine, not theirs. I can throw it off a cliff if I want without asking for Apple's permission, why can't I install software on it?
> At that point, they _do_ want a relationship with some hardware manufacturer so that the third party app can be delivered to run on the hardware.
The device manufacturer should not need to be involved with a user's decision to install software. There should not be this requirement to have a relationship with them. We should never have allowed this idea to be normalized that the device manufacturer needs to be somehow have a say, let alone be the sole path to using the device.
Device manufacturers should sell devices and then get out of the way of what the user is doing with those devices.
I mostly agree, although if the manufacturer has a catalog of software (which they have managed to check for quality, classification, etc) that you can optionally use for installing software (which others can also choose to do, e.g. in the case of Android there is also F-Droid), but that you can also install anything that you want to do by yourself (including software that you wrote by yourself) without needing to be able (or willing) to contact (or have anything further to do with) the manufacturer (for any reason), then it can be helpful.
Also, if someone provides a service (e.g. Netflix) that some might want to use and some might not, then you have the option to use that service might be helpful but even that should not require any relationship with the manufacturer unless they are also providing the service. If the manufacturer is separate then they should not have anything to do with it (e.g. they should not add a button on the remote control specific for Netflix; if they have user programmable buttons that you can add your own labels, then it would be possible to use such a thing like that if the end user decides to install Netflix). (There are other problems with Netflix too but I am ignoring them for now because that would be a separate discussion.)
[dead]