> Controversial opinion here, but this is part of the reason I like that Apple makes (practically) all purchases run through them. They don’t sell my information, and they have an incentive to not change that.
I'm sympathetic to this, because I do think it's great that Apple values user privacy. But I think it's unfortunate that the perception is that the only way to get that privacy is to use a heavily locked-down device that the user doesn't actually have control over, and that the entity protecting your privacy has to impose strict restrictions on what you can do with that device.
Obviously Google will never be a good example of a company that protects user data and user privacy; their entire business model depends on the opposite. But that doesn't mean that the concept of a company selling a premium product that protects user privacy by default couldn't also allow users to do whatever they want with their device.
The problem with open devices is that at some point someone is going to undercut you by providing a "free" product and then we're back in square one of trading user data - and in the process you created a fragmentation hell.
Nah, give me expensive, locked down products (as long as they work). Clearly its something the consumers want, hence Apple's monstrous pile of cash.
> The problem with open devices is that at some point someone is going to undercut you by providing a "free" product and then we're back in square one of trading user data
Except that the stores have to compete with each other, so who is going to choose the one with all the apps that trade user data? Certainly not the users who are allegedly patronizing Apple only because they don't want that.
> and in the process you created a fragmentation hell.
I don't understand what this is supposed to be about. Is it "fragmentation" that you can get books from a book store and a library and online and a thrift store? How is that a problem? If the books in the thrift store are torn up and written in, why not just buy from a different one?
> Clearly its something the consumers want, hence Apple's monstrous pile of cash.
People keep saying this, but the fact that you have no alternatives to Apple's store on their devices is precisely why you can't prove it that way. We have no data on how many people are buying their devices for the store vs. despite the store and for the hardware or the OS or iMessage etc.
“Except that the stores have to compete with each other, so who is going to choose the one with all the apps that trade user data? Certainly not the users who are allegedly patronizing Apple only because they don't want that.”
They will when many of the key apps are only available through the privacy agnostic stores.
How are the "key apps" going to move there when the users refuse to install apps from there? If it was so easy, why don't all the "key apps" do this already and stop using Apple's store so that everybody has to switch to Android?
Key apps have zero incentive to try to get people to switch to Android. Even if there was, there is a prisoners dilemma - it would only work if many of them switched at once.
This is absolutely nothing like the situation with multiple app stores, where not all apps have to switch at once.
Most users do not refuse to use Facebook. New people take up smoking daily. The idea that users would ‘refuse’ to buy apps from a store run by Facebook (or worse) is an idealistic fantasy.
As for why apps would switch to other stores? Paid exclusives, just as with every other media type - TV, Movies, Books, Podcasts.
People who have hits get paid a huge premium for exclusives, because it forces customers to use the new store or platform.
Epic is already buying exclusives. Amazon and Facebook, and TenCent et all would obviously do so too.
The only choice for users would be to install all of the stores.
The only choice for developers will be to deal with all of the stores.
Apps will be the new TV. Costs will rise. Almost everything will be funded by the store networks.
The long tail of small developers will be absolutely decimated.
Users won’t care and will barely remember the difference. The ten years of Apple’s store will be a quaint memory from the early days.
> Key apps have zero incentive to try to get people to switch to Android.
Google Play is less stringent about privacy than Apple (right?), so the same incentives would exist.
> Even if there was, there is a prisoners dilemma - it would only work if many of them switched at once.
Which would still be true with alternate stores. Nobody wants to be the first to switch to a shady store that customers don't trust and abandon the one they do.
> Most users do not refuse to use Facebook. New people take up smoking daily. The idea that users would ‘refuse’ to buy apps from a store run by Facebook (or worse) is an idealistic fantasy.
Then what's stopping them all from switching to Android right now? Why haven't they done it already?
> As for why apps would switch to other stores? Paid exclusives, just as with every other media type - TV, Movies, Books, Podcasts.
That only gets the user to use the store to install one app which they're already familiar with. It doesn't require anyone to trust the same store for apps they're not familiar with. For that to happen the store would still have to establish a reputation for trustworthiness, which would require it to not carry shady apps.
> The only choice for users would be to install all of the stores.
> The only choice for developers will be to deal with all of the stores.
These are obviously contradictory positions. If all the apps were in all the stores, a user would only need to use one of them (presumably the one they like the best). If all the users had all the stores, a developer would only need to be in one of them (presumably the one users like the best, to maximize competitive advantage over alternative apps).
The stores still have to compete with each other for users.
None of your conclusions make any sense. Competition reduces costs because all else equal people will choose the alternative which takes a smaller profit margin and passes that money to the user or the app developer, which either makes apps less expensive for the same amount of developer revenue, or increases developer revenue at the same price to the user which leads to more and better apps.
Monopolies are abusive and inefficient, so removing them makes things better. It's why we have antitrust laws.
Paid exclusives cause other stores to be more popular. They don't cause other stores to be less restrictive, if that's what the users want, because having an exclusive on a garbage app the users don't want would fail to get anyone to use the store, and getting users to buy anything other than the non-garbage exclusive app from the other store is only done by getting the users to trust the store, by not having it be full of garbage apps.
I'm sympathetic to this, because I do think it's great that Apple values user privacy. But I think it's unfortunate that the perception is that the only way to get that privacy is to use a heavily locked-down device that the user doesn't actually have control over, and that the entity protecting your privacy has to impose strict restrictions on what you can do with that device.
Obviously Google will never be a good example of a company that protects user data and user privacy; their entire business model depends on the opposite. But that doesn't mean that the concept of a company selling a premium product that protects user privacy by default couldn't also allow users to do whatever they want with their device.