I have been using Android since Nexus 2 and iPhone since 6s. Never in my life I felt like I have experienced censorship in default app stores.
If they are against the monopolized market make a clear argument, preferably consumer-focused. Don’t hide behind “censorship” and abstract ideas that have proven not to scale - such as users should be able to chose who they trust. This shows such an insane disconnect from the reality of the vast majority of consumers that it’s laughable to include it.
And as usual, a great example of a censorship free open market - China.
> Never in my life I felt like I have experienced censorship in default app stores.
You're thinking of censorship as a consumer that I presume lives in a developed country. Consumers elsewhere can face censorship [0][1]. I hope this can change your perspective a little bit.
Any local alternative app store is a far easier target for government censorship. Look at Chinese and Russian Android app stores. They comply immediately, often without even publicizing that. Apple at least takes longer to force to comply.
I mean… yes, censorship exists in many countries, including the US. If China forced _Apple_ to abide by their rules I struggle to imagine how an alternative store would avoid that. Biggest Chinese app stores are tightly managed by the state, same as the entirety of their tech market.
With free software and decentralized repositories, users in each country can decide which software they want to distribute and how. If someone thinks a local ban is unjust, they know they have the right and the tools to redistribute any app that is in f-droid.org, or other free software repositories. Free software is central to an effective decentralized ecosystem.
This reasoning doesn't seem particularly sound to me. On the topic of knowing whether or not something's been censored from reaching your attention, it's possible that censorship efforts prevented you from even hearing about an app that you would want to install, which is not available in the default store. Consider a person in China who has never heard of Tank Man and how they might think they don't experience censorship (or, at least, Tank Man is not included in the censorship they do believe they experience).
Points you make in other comments about how official app stores are relatively "safe" for the average user are strong and I don't want to sound like I disagree with your conclusion. Just that this reason to believe "I have not experienced censorship" is misguided.
It's an interesting argument even though I don't fully agree with it. The Tank Man analogy is that even though the Chinese person has not actively pursued this topic, they experience the effects of censorship because this topic has been basically erased from their cultural space. So of course they do not pursue it - they can't ("they don't have a word for it" in Orwell's terms).
However, we are not discussing censorship as a state-level concern. An app censored on iOS can still exist as a web app or as an Android app. Apple's AppStore does not encompass the entirety of our cultural narrative. On the contrary, an app banned from AppStore often generates a lot of press.
(again, anecdotal) I can't remember a single app that I have discovered on the AppStore. The process always starts with hearing about an app from someone else, or reading about it.
> I can't remember a single app that I have discovered on the AppStore.
Does fairly well suggest that the store itself is not implementing censorship. Again, I don't want to sound like I disagree. Just wanted to pick your brain a bit more.
(I guess Apple could be involved with censorship efforts to prevent news from getting out about a ban, but that's obviously harder to do when the information is disseminated outside their store. The kind of censorship I suggested is much more of a state-level actor concern.)
That’s not due to censorship though. And yes - both iOS and Android have great adblockers. I use AdGuard Pro on iOS and my experience is as good as using uBlock origin on desktop.
Saying that, I agree that alternative rendering engines should be allowed in AppStore. Don’t think we need an alternative app store for that.
I have worked in IT for a few years and dealt with many very tech illiterate people. Apple AppStore is a relatively safe space for them, if they get scammed into installing an alternative MyApps store with a ton of trackers and other scam software they will suffer tremendously.
And if you have ever worked in IT or helped your extended family with tech issues you would know the difference between the web and iOS in terms of viruses, scam apps, tracking, ransomware, etc.
On your iPhone, why don't you try installing a browser that doesn't use the webkit engine? How about installing an emulator to play some classic games?
It's a little ironic you're demanding they make a clear argument when your argument is just a simple anecdote that doesn't even hold up well. Sure you haven't experienced censorship in default app stores because you aren't actually trying to do much with your device.
Maybe one of the websites you use frequently doesn't have good support for WebKit. They make sure Chrome works, and often test Mozilla, but 80% of the time they roll out a new feature it's broken in WebKit for a couple of weeks before the devs fix it. Yeah, you'd like to go to a different website, but you've had an account on this one for over a decade and know a lot of other users, or they get scoops that none of their competitors do, so that's just not going to work for you.
Or, the other browser implements part of the `webext` API that WebKit does not, and there's an extension out there that you'd really like to use. Maybe one that integrates with your existing password manager, or rewrites Twitter URLs to nitter.net, or whatever, and the extension just won't work with WebKit.
Or, maybe WebKit's JavaScriptCore just isn't fast enough for some web-based game you like, and you'd like to run a browser that uses V8 or SpiderMonkey instead.
You're right, a lot of users don't have these problems, and don't care... until maybe one day they do. And maybe 99% of users will never have these problems at all, but 1% of Apple's userbase is still a lot of users who could benefit from browser choice, one day.
Since you’re choosing the example here, is there a better one? This is just not a compelling thing even for most technical users, so if this is all we’re missing out on then it seems like a ringing endorsement for Apple’s curation.
Do I want you to be able to install an emulator? Of course. This is pure protectionism by a monopoly.
Do I want my family to be able to install a fake banking or health app? No.
So based on this principle, I would say jailbraking is a viable option for tech-savvy people who really need something special on their phone that is being unfairly restricted by Apple.
> And as usual, a great example of a censorship free open market - China.
If China looks like a more competitive and healthy ecosystem, as an anti-China person you can respond either by thinking that's a problem, or by smirking about China.
> make a clear argument
Their arguments are a lot clearer than yours, which seem to be an expansion of "oh, come on!" You're appstore-splaining to people who run a successful appstore by telling them they're out of touch.
Chinese market is tightly controlled by the state. They have very strict rules for how western tech companies must behave. They have forced even the biggest players to abide by their censorship laws.
And yes, they are out of touch. But not from ignorance - they are intentionally appealing to our sense of fairness while pursuing their own interests.
I am arguing against their appeal. Censorship, decentralization, freedom to chose who you trust, etc. It’s the same appeal crypto uses to deceive inexperienced people into believing that these things are really relevant to their life. It’s manipulative.
Personally I think these aspects are important and will probably play a bigger part in the future. But censorship is not why I think we should open up such a huge risk surface on iOS.
here's one example where app store policy disrupted one platform and thousands of people's lives: tumblr. the way it played out ended up very directly impacting online communities and creators. even those who might've been not as directly affected by policy changes, still end up getting disrupted by shifts in audience. those appstores end up affecting users well outside of where their reach supposedly ends, not limited to the actual customers of those appstores. they continuously engage in censorship, and it doesn't stop at 'good censorship', it can be opinionated, prudish, or materialistic and self-serving (such as, prohibiting apps from telling people that they can subscribe directly, instead of going through the appstore). personally I don't need a frigid nanny with a hollier-than-thou 'let us decide for you' attitude. but even when you pick a platform that won't involve being beholden to such decisions, you still end up getting fallout from other platforms that do make decisions like that, even though you're not using them. and this is why it's worth raising a huge stink about monopolistic control over platforms. some policy decisions end up spreading to everyone, no matter what platform they use.
with vague talk about twitter possibly getting some kind of boot from appstores, which will invariably result in some kind of act of censorship to mold it to fit the appstore policies, i don't really get how one could go 'yeah, these things aren't actually impacting people in their day-to-day life'. they absolutely do. literally all of those things mentioned are playing out in real time for twitter and people who use it or affected by it in some kind of way. which turns out to be increasingly everyone.
We have to fight censorship, not introduce a new attack vector that will result in a whole new class of scams targeted at hundreds of millions of people.
Tumblr, Twitter, TikTok - ok, let's focus on preserving access to these apps if you feel this is important. Allowing users to install any unverified app is a massive problem. Just look at what we use our phones for: banking, health, investment, personal info, 2FA, and more.
F-droid is safer (reproducible builds of open source software) than the Play Store (static analysis followed by dynamic analysis in a cloud emulator), which is safer than the Apple App Store (human looking at a HIG checklist).
To be clear, F-droid is an excellent piece of software. It's small and is used mostly by quite technical people, so it's not as an attractive target as Apple's AppStore. But that's the thing: some technical solutions work amazingly well for the 0.001% (like HN users). But they do not scale to tech illiterate people. It's a completely different problem space.
> I am arguing against their appeal. Censorship, decentralization,
freedom to chose who you trust, etc. It’s the same appeal crypto
uses to deceive inexperienced people into believing that these
things are really relevant to their life. It’s manipulative.
I'm sorry if I misread this. I read it through carefully a few times
now.
Did you just actually say that people's "freedom to chose who you
trust" is irrelavent to their lives?!
That must win the prize for the all time most patronising semtiment
I've read on HN. Surely you're trolling at this point?
In absolutist, idealistic terms - yes, everyone should be 100% responsible for who they trust, should have no limits on this choice.
In practical terms what we get is "Banks are not your friend" being proclaimed by a scammer arguing that you should trust them, not a tightly regulated industry. And millions of people suffer from that. Sure, "it's their fault" because they didn't "look into it".
Guys really, we need to start treating _choice_ as a first class
software feature, something more than a "nice" thing that we can just
snatch away from young or old people, or people we deem too stupid.
I don't know. On the one hand - yes, let's stop patronizing people. On the other hand we need to be responsible. There are many vulnerable people, they can't just get their shit together and become tech-savvy.
You and I differ on digital literacy. To me it's the only way to
ultimately solve this problem. It's not about educating people
technically. See my paper on "Digital Self Defence as Civic
Cyber-Security". Here in the UK we're taking that line (officially) at
last. And starting young!
Before limiting peoples' options to corporate walled gardens on the
assumption that "its safer" we can try actually scuring the products,
hardware and OS is the foundation. Got to stop listening to the
negative, defeatist voices who say "that's impossible".
And y'know there are laws against computer misuse. We ought to
seriously try enforcing them, even if that means the inconvenient
truth of exposing criminals with fancy brand names and logos. :)
I like your optimism and on my best days I mostly agree with it.
My skepticism is rooted in two phenomena:
1. Our society seems to be unable to address criminal behavior at the current scale, how can we expect it to improve if we expand the attack surface? Counties are unable to stop basic phone and tech support scams for decades now. There are just a few dozen companies that are responsible and we still fail. I can’t trust the authorities to be able to address more sophisticated scams at a bigger scale. Corruption is at the core of this. So now we also have to solve corruption.
2. Tech literacy is not enough to effectively avoid tech scams. It’s helpful for sure, but look at how many educated people got burned by crypto. I agree it’s work in progress and maybe we will become better as a society. But I need to see more proof to feel confident in that.
It is true that many essential organizations cannot effectively defend their networks. But it is also important to point out that there are many orgs that _are_ effectively defending their networks. I've worked in IT in a huge range of companies, orgs, and context. One thing that is clear is the culture plays a huge role. Those with a culture of supporting people who deal with real problems fare much better, those with a culture of "Cover Your Ass" or "When you say jump, I say how high" are getting hacked left and right.
I might sound too antagonistic on this topic, that's not my intention.
F-droid is a great app repository, no problem with them whatsoever. I am highlighting the fact that a purist argument for a technological change that does not extensively invest into understanding the negative impacts on consumers is bogus. How many iPhone users really need an alternative store? Versus how many iPhone users want to have safeties around installing apps critical to their well-being?
To your point: maybe a hard to enable setting for allowing sideloading would satisfy both the safety and the flexibility concerns. But at the end of the day, if I ever need a hackable device I will just get an Android or jailbrake my iPhone. I explicitly separate my own needs from what I perceive as a very dangerous change for 99.99% of iPhone users.
I agree with basically all the points in this thread, one thing that is missing is that most of these points are not mutually exclusive. A decentralized system like F-Droid does not close out the possibility of walled gardens, it just gives users choice of whether they want to remain in it. For example, you can buy a CalyxOS device now and only enable F-Droid as the app source. That is a walled garden of the safest kind: all free software reviewed by bots and humans before inclusion. Users then can opt into other sources.
We have recently implemented some rudimentary controls where you can use Device Admin mode to lock F-Droid to a given set of repositories. That strictly enforces the walled garden, but doesn't require a single monopolist have all the power.
>And as usual, a great example of a censorship free open market - China.
the article is talking about the Chinese consumer application ecosystem, not the state and is indeed correct on this. The platform ecosystem offers significantly more choice and Apple for example does not enforce its monopolistic powers as it does in the Western market. As a result you have genuine competition on the distribution end, like WeChat.
Alternatives are not competition in a highly state-controlled environment. It’s an appearance of competition. Exactly what the Chinese government wants.
I agree that censorship is not the best angle the article concludes on but I don't think "user choice, decentralization, and community-controlled curation" are abstract ideas. The article is concrete what this looks like practically speaking:
> This means F-Droid gives you selected apps by default without bans or censorship. When you install the F-Droid app, it automatically connects to the collection on f-droid.org that is maintained by this community. F-Droid also makes it easy for anyone to publish their own repository, with their own curation rules.
i.e., yes, you do get the "F-Droid List" by default, but you are welcome to connect to a different list or publish your own "list" of apps that has its own curation rules.
Imagine if you could view Apple or Google's app store with an "awesome app" list curated by a list of experts you follow without all the junk of suggested apps or ads. That would go in the direction of "meta-curation" akin to what /u/hinkley is referring to in a another comment [1].
Steam already has curators/curation lists exactly like you describe. They are usually not particularly interesting.
Anyone can make a web page with apps they think are great, and links to those apps that will go straight to store pages. Very few people do.
These are done rarely because there's little or no money in it. Give the curators a significant cut, and now you have a lot of curators and a lot of gaming of the system.
Now you need to curate the curators, which is still a significant problem.
Throughout all of that, you'll have those claiming that curation is censorship. They don't matter because you can never satisfy them.
Who ensures security in decentralized app stores? Curators, independently? Or can they "inherit" that from the major app stores?
With free software and reproducible builds, it is possible for small scale curators to inherit the security of the large scale curators. That is why they are key pieces of the f-droid.org collection.
> Imagine if you could view Apple or Google's app store with an "awesome app" list curated by a list of experts you follow without all the junk of suggested apps or ads.
My highschool history teacher once said the answer to nearly everything is money.
Why don't we have mobile app stores that operate in a manner similar to package managers? Money. Why can't I install what I want on my iPhone? Money.
This distinction is very minor. From my perspective there is almost no difference whether I am viewing a curated app list as a web page or as an alternative App Store. This has almost no consumer advantage and a vastly increased risk surface as an obvious downside.
This, from my perspective anyway, seems to be one of the biggest drivers of adoption for closed ecosystems. Users want to feel safe and not vet everything ( because it is hard to do well ) and it is genuinely hard to argue with that stance from a very pragmatic POV. As my friend once put it 'I don't want to spend my valuable time left fiddling'. For the argument you mention, I think I agree, because I still remember getting calls from family members, who installed something and now had constant unremovable popups everywhere.
That said, Apple seems to be more targeted now precisely ( compared to non-Apple linux and Windows ) because it has more people, who are lulled by the sense of security Apple curation model provides.
edit: I kinda get that the article is mostly about mobile devices, but the app-store concept appears to have moved to desktop world as well.
I agree - for most users safety is more important than "alternative stores".
This post is very manipulative in my view. It would be really easy to avoid that for the authors - just list the downsides of allowing any app to be installed on an iPhone. What are the consequences of allowing your parent to install "Bank of Amerika" on their phone? Exactly.
How people access apps is not a on/off switch between walled garden and dog eat dog free for all. Decentralized systems need to be designed with safety in mind, just like walled gardens do. Both can be done badly or done well.
Let's be fair - I don't think we're talking about simply swapping lists when you zoom out. At a minimum, any value prop would have to match the existing major app stores such as verifying binary sources, rejecting malicious apps, and the like.
I think the main question I see is - do multiple stores benefit the user?
I'm not sure of that answer but I think we can agree that multiple stores do NOT help the default app store, which in turn could be beneficial to the consumer (multiple stores that have to compete on pricing w/ deals, self publishers offering a cheaper price directly, etc. - think more like grocery stores selling the same stuff vs farmers market vs direct from farm).
I'm no economist but I think we could also agree that having at least a few options is generally A Good Thing.
edit: regardless, even in a world with multiple stores the point re: attack surface is a good one and one of your other comments regarding what users actually value like safety is an important one, which as a business are the things you need to weigh on to make a profit
I disagree that the main question is: "do multiple stores benefit the user?". The main question is: "Should the user have the choice in their stores?". Apple believes that their users should not have that choice, and Google used that to drive adoption with Android by making it more open. AS Google gained the market share and power, they locked down Android more and more to gain those monopoly-level profits. Based on data that was released as part of Oracle v. Google, it looks like they have over 40% profit margins. Plus notice how Google just cut their fee in half (30% to 15%). That means they were rolling in cash.
There are many alternative stores available for Android. In my experience this only leads to:
1. Less trusted software. Can I trust Russian Yandex app store? Can I trust Amazon app store?
2. Focus on upselling their own / affiliated apps.
3. No actual increase in choice. Some devices just come preinstalled with alternative stores for no other reason than their own monetary benefit.
4. A theoretical benefit that "I have choice" and if someone bans something I _might_ be able to install it from a different store. Of course oppressive regimes don't just ban apps, they often restrict internet in more severe ways.
If they are against the monopolized market make a clear argument, preferably consumer-focused. Don’t hide behind “censorship” and abstract ideas that have proven not to scale - such as users should be able to chose who they trust. This shows such an insane disconnect from the reality of the vast majority of consumers that it’s laughable to include it.
And as usual, a great example of a censorship free open market - China.