Sigh... I’ll ignore the subtle dig and respond to this straight. I don’t want my daily driver phone that I rely on to do my real hacking to be a science experiment. I want it to be a tool that always works, and I want it to be somebody else’s job to ensure that. No one is perfect at this, not even Apple, but they are the best at it in 2020 and the App Store lock down is part of that. If Android didn’t exist, I might feel that a different balance would be optimal, but it does, and it’s thriving. I’ve developed for the App Store and while it’s a pain in the ass, I actually appreciate that There are standards that must be met and I can’t be undercut by a competitor who is willing to take shortcuts.

Why? As a developer it sounds like a nightmare, but as a costumer, I like it. It makes for a great experience.

I just find it shortsighted; you're getting immediate convenience at the expense of longer term innovation and freedom. As I keep saying, if Microsoft had the power in 1990 that people want Apple to have today, the web wouldn't exist because Mosaic and Netscape would have been banned.

I’d prefer it if Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and other device makers released products that were on par with Apple’s. We are in this situation because Apple release better products than the competition. As a costumer, I want better products.

Because it's as far as you can go from being a "Hacker".

People here are consumers too. To give my anecdata:

I used to subscribe to the NYT and made the mistake of not subscribing using Apple's subscriptions mechanism. When I wanted to cancel for a while, I had to go through a whole spiel with their sales rep to get them to honor my cancellation. With other subscription services on Apple (like many the TV streaming subscriptions) cancelling is a couple of standard clicks and you're done. No questions asked. I've cancelled and re-subscribed to thing like HBO multiple times because of it, but I will never be resubscribing to the NYT again.

I don't want 90 different ways to cancel 90 different subscriptions from 90 different stores for 90 different apps on my phone, so yeah I do appreciate having one place to do it, and I wish it were harder for developers to skirt the App Store infrastructure to push their own consumer-hostile options.

As a signifier of technological anti-establishment thinking I think that label is pretty meaningless at this point.

Most of the "Hackers" of my generation grew up to either vacuum up user data without their consent, micro-target advertising (including political propaganda), or fund those that do the above two things.

But I am a customer too. For example, a couple months ago an, ad got my mom to install an app without her consent. She said she could not escape the page until she clicked okay, and she wasn’t aware the app had installed at all. I noticed because I started receiving charges for a subscription to the app services. A simple chat with Apple support granted me a reimbursement. As a customer, Apple treats me well. I understand where tons of developers are coming from, but as a customer I haven’t had a better experience.