That’s one way of looking at it, but I think the reason the issue keeps coming up on HN is that it feels like a serious regression that we’ve ended up in a world where one of the most ubiquitous platforms is a walled garden. Even in the days of Windows dominance, that wasn’t a problem.
The transition happened so gradually that we ended up here without a lot of discussion, which is why the discussion is happening now.
Is it a regression, though? In the days of Windows, malware was rampant. There was no sense of sandboxing so installs could get deeply embedded and hard to purge. There was certainly the uncertainty of the validity of software when downloaded.
This is not to suggest we should remove this capability from macOS/Windows but I wouldn’t call it a regression.
That’s a good point, but I feel like modern Mac desktop computing hits the right balance: users can opt to install only from the App store with a high degree of confidence, but power-users can use Homebrew without restriction.
But customers who like to have more freedom can still buy Android phones instead. Nobody is forcing them to buy Apple devices. I think it's a positive thing that we have diverse options for different needs.
No, Apple has been pestered to make the iPhone an open platform from day one. They’ve consistently said no.
I bet you’re right about the motivation for this silly outrage: People claim the iPhone is a PC because they wish it to be, because the cognitive dissonance was so great when “Open didn’t always win”
The transition happened so gradually that we ended up here without a lot of discussion, which is why the discussion is happening now.