This is an interesting POV that I haven’t seen explained so clearly or forcefully before:
In my experience, it’s only two specific types of people who want their phones to work significantly more like PCs, permission-wise. The first group is comprised of the technically-savvy — like many of you reading this — who feel confident in their own ability to gauge the trustworthiness of third-party software. The second group is business-minded people, who are thinking only about what percentage of purchases goes to whom, and are only thinking about the money.
I suspect he’s dead right about the demographics there, at least. (I’m sure opinions here will differ on whether those elite groups have the right idea or not.)
These arguments from Apple though completely ignore the fact that non power users can just use the built in Apple IAP, or they will probably be able to save money with the small hassle of 3rd party.
Case in point: did you know you can subscribe to DuoLingo online and save dollars a month? But Apple’s abusive “anti steering” rules mean developers can’t hint at it from within the app. We the users have had 3rd party purchases already and nothing’s burst into flames.
Scam apps should have a good time charging you a subscription for 10 yrs or not giving any mechanism in the app to stop the subscription. Though obscure pimping apps masquerading as messaging apps would have a good time.
> but never once have any of them said to me, “Boy, I sure wish iPhone apps and games could ask me for my credit card number to make purchases
Non-technical people would expect to download the Kindle app and be able to buy books, or download Netflix and buy a subscription, or Subscribe to a Twitch streamer. They don't know why the apps lack these obvious features, but if they did, they'd at least be thinking “Boy, I sure wish iPhone apps and games could ask me for my credit card number to make purchases"
In my experience, it’s only two specific types of people who want their phones to work significantly more like PCs, permission-wise. The first group is comprised of the technically-savvy — like many of you reading this — who feel confident in their own ability to gauge the trustworthiness of third-party software. The second group is business-minded people, who are thinking only about what percentage of purchases goes to whom, and are only thinking about the money.
I suspect he’s dead right about the demographics there, at least. (I’m sure opinions here will differ on whether those elite groups have the right idea or not.)