YOU felt like you owned your computer because you're a tech nerd, software developer, or similar.
That is not the feeling a "Wild West" environment gives to 99% of people using these devices. It is much closer to Russian Roulette than anything else.
Killing app stores would paradoxically dramatically shrink the market for software and cause massive consolidation on the developer side. The big players with big budgets and marketing clout would survive but it would devestate most others and shrink the overall market by 40-50%. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why by applying the same principles folks on HN use every day to optimize customer acquisitions, increase ARR, etc. When every app asks for your credit card (and they would) you automatically shrink the funnel dramatically. That doesn't even begin to consider all the scams, subscriptions you can't actually cancel, or malware that deliberately subverts sandboxes or plays silent audio to continuously run in the background to kill your battery.
There's a natural incentive if stores compete for developers: reduce commissions. The end result of that is get rid of review or any other quality control standards because those things cost money. The large players won't participate because they'll want to keep everything for themselves. You can forget about anything that improves privacy or makes your life easier as an end user.
For end users the bar to jump through all those hoops and take on the security and financial risks will be much higher. They will buy less software.
It amazes me how quickly some of my fellow nerds will fall into the same myopic traps over and over without consideration for the other 99% who aren't computer experts. And without consideration for what it takes to actually run and be successful in business. Just because it would be more convenient for them personally.
Does Windows use an app store these days? They might have one, but my experience is largely I'm still downloading EXE files from a /download page somewhere. But I only use for my work so not installing much. I still feel like the app store on OSX is meh. I download DMG files 99% of the time from a /download page somewhere. Seems to work fine, what am I missing?
You're making it sound like app stores have fixed something but I'm failing to see what. Maybe on iOS it gives some exposure/discoverability to new apps. But I don't see that as an overwhelming feature for end users. This used to exist outside of app stores as web based directories and that worked better in my opinion.
That is not the feeling a "Wild West" environment gives to 99% of people using these devices. It is much closer to Russian Roulette than anything else.
Killing app stores would paradoxically dramatically shrink the market for software and cause massive consolidation on the developer side. The big players with big budgets and marketing clout would survive but it would devestate most others and shrink the overall market by 40-50%. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why by applying the same principles folks on HN use every day to optimize customer acquisitions, increase ARR, etc. When every app asks for your credit card (and they would) you automatically shrink the funnel dramatically. That doesn't even begin to consider all the scams, subscriptions you can't actually cancel, or malware that deliberately subverts sandboxes or plays silent audio to continuously run in the background to kill your battery.
There's a natural incentive if stores compete for developers: reduce commissions. The end result of that is get rid of review or any other quality control standards because those things cost money. The large players won't participate because they'll want to keep everything for themselves. You can forget about anything that improves privacy or makes your life easier as an end user.
For end users the bar to jump through all those hoops and take on the security and financial risks will be much higher. They will buy less software.
It amazes me how quickly some of my fellow nerds will fall into the same myopic traps over and over without consideration for the other 99% who aren't computer experts. And without consideration for what it takes to actually run and be successful in business. Just because it would be more convenient for them personally.