Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

deccanherald.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 369 posts

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#151

Post by searchableguy »

jpxw wrote: post #140
bhaavan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know reality, like at all? GetJar: I am hearing of this app for the first time, and I have seen and used many indian phones. Flipkart, Zomato, Swiggy are Indian companies with apps completely developed in India. Walmart has a major shareholding stake in Flipkart since a few years now. PayTM is also fully developed and operated in India, but yes, it does have Alibaba backing it. However, it was not at all consi…

> Also you have really funny spelling skills Given the poor grammar of your comment, I’d remind you that kids in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

Flag it and move on. It's not good to attack the person even if they did it first.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#152

Post by bilalhusain »

ahiknsr wrote: post #131
bilalhusain wrote: post #126

Since the title mentions the idea as well as the govt, let me add that while the idea is excellent, the current (Modi) govt is incompetent when it comes to execution, or may be has some other interests. Examples - failed demonetization, poor implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST), failed Covid-19 lockdown. Most of what the govt does benefits select corporates (eg. rise of Jio). Interestingly, Paytm benefited…

>>>They are known to blackout journalists, assassinate lawyer, conduct media trials and put anyone speaking against them in jail. Can you please share some citation for the assassination part. I don't think the Bar Council of India would be happy if a lawyer is assassinated by government.

I am talking about Justice Loya [1].

By the way, the govt has been very active in making sure that they have their loyal representatives in bureaucracy as well as in judiciary. Recently, the Supreme Court convicted a prominent lawyer for a tweet criticizing them [2]. It is very easy for them to dismiss cases which might show them in bad light. Media has no independence either. Eg. the case of Punya Prasun Bajpai [3] who's show was blacked out and eventually cancelled because it was critical of Modi.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brijgopal_Harkishan_Loya

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/world/asia/india-bhushan-...

[3] https://thewire.in/media/punya-prasun-bajpai-abp-news-narend...

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#153

Post by arebhaibhai »

dheera wrote: post #139
diego_moita wrote: post #56

I welcome this. It will be messy, it will open oportunities to corruption, lobbying, crappy user experiences, unsafe apps, government abuse, nationalism, ... it is really a Pandora box. But mess can be a fertile ground for competition and innovation when excessive regulation blocks it. Today's app stores are just feature development labs for Apple & Google. There is no chance that anyone will be able to create a big…

The thing is, why would anyone voluntarily use a censored/restricted app store? For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari. For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to jus…

>> It's pretty open

I disagree. It's the quite opposite. So many popular apps don't even get a notice before getting banned, let alone small indie developers trying to get some users.

>> why the hell would anyone use it?

Not sure about others but I definetly don't want a US company to put nose in everything I do online. Plus I don't want to give a 30% cut for a regional app that I can publish on some local platform for local users. And I would rather deal with low quality apps than popular apps disappearing every now and then just because Google doesn't like them.

>> do they have the authority to do that?

Yes but it's not practical in country like India to enforce it. Free speech and what govt can regulate about internet are different things as far I've seen.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#154

Post by simonh »

raghavtoshniwal wrote: post #146
wtmt wrote: post #143

This is going to be a big mess. PayTM as a company isn’t known for respecting user privacy. The CEO’s brother was caught in a sting video saying they could sell any user’s information for a price (search online and you’ll find the video). All that these Indian startups care is for them to benefit and control everything. It’s not about equitable treatment. It’s more about regulatory capture and making sure that their…

It would be messy for sure but there is somewhat precedence for it. WeChat operates its own AppStores and is subservient to the CCP. 'Running' your own AppStore is forbidden in the iOS terms of service but when you have the might of a billion people, some rules are okay to be broken.

WeChat mini-programs don't actually run as native code on the phone though. They're much more like web apps running on the WeChat back end, with WecChat acting as a browser to access them. Roblox does a similar thing, with interactive games from third parties running on the Roblox servers in the virtual environment. A third party app store where you install native code apps on the phone, directly accessing phone OS services and consuming local resources is a completely different thing, right?

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#155

Post by sbmthakur »

baybal2 wrote: post #49

India has a following issue with Android ecosystem, almost everything not owned by Google, is owned by some Chinese co. GetJar - sold to Chinese PayTM - Chinese shareholder Flipcart - Chinese shareholder Zomato, swiggy, + 10+ others online delivery/logistics apps. Some used to be reskins of Chinese apps. Some only have Indian C-levels. 20 something messengers - all except FB, and Twiter are Chinese ... I believe they…

How does having Chinese shareholders(in minority) make an app Chinese?

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#156

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dheera wrote: post #139
diego_moita wrote: post #56

I welcome this. It will be messy, it will open oportunities to corruption, lobbying, crappy user experiences, unsafe apps, government abuse, nationalism, ... it is really a Pandora box. But mess can be a fertile ground for competition and innovation when excessive regulation blocks it. Today's app stores are just feature development labs for Apple & Google. There is no chance that anyone will be able to create a big…

The thing is, why would anyone voluntarily use a censored/restricted app store? For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari. For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to jus…

> I thought India was a democracy with free speech

The First Amendment is radically unprecedented and unique, in its text, judicial upholding and cultural backing.

While India technically has freedoms of speech, in practice it is heavily regulated [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Ind...

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#157

Post by PaulHoule »

raghavtoshniwal wrote: post #144
actuator wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just puzzled about one bit of this, why the hue and cry few days back about this. Don't Android App stores like the Amazon one already exist? What's stopping these devs to even distribute the apps themselves? iOS is a different matter but Android has always allowed this. Not sure if they exist in India, but I have seen Android phones come with non Google App Store as well.

Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore. The same case could not have been made for Amazon's and Samsung's store.

Won't Apple just refuse to sell iPhones in India?

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#158

Post by zepto »

sbmthakur wrote: post #155
baybal2 wrote: post #49

India has a following issue with Android ecosystem, almost everything not owned by Google, is owned by some Chinese co. GetJar - sold to Chinese PayTM - Chinese shareholder Flipcart - Chinese shareholder Zomato, swiggy, + 10+ others online delivery/logistics apps. Some used to be reskins of Chinese apps. Some only have Indian C-levels. 20 something messengers - all except FB, and Twiter are Chinese ... I believe they…

How does having Chinese shareholders(in minority) make an app Chinese?

If access to the Chinese market is a significant portion of revenue, then these (large) minority shareholders ultimately control the company.

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#159

Post by _dqai »

patmorgan23 wrote: post #135
dannyw wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their press release says: > F-Droid is taking a political stance here I do not want any App Store to be taking political stances.

Free software is a political stance

Free as in free speech. The Gab app does not violate the four essential freedoms [1] or F-Droid's inclusion policy [2]. They even host Hentai apps where you can access lolicon pornography [3] and simply state that users should "be aware of any applicable local laws and regulations".

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[2] https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Inclusion_Policy/

[3] https://f-droid.org/en/packages/moe.feng.nhentai/

Re: Modi government to set up app store alternative to Google Play, Apple App Store

#160

Post by singularity2001 »

wtmt wrote: post #143

This is going to be a big mess. PayTM as a company isn’t known for respecting user privacy. The CEO’s brother was caught in a sting video saying they could sell any user’s information for a price (search online and you’ll find the video). All that these Indian startups care is for them to benefit and control everything. It’s not about equitable treatment. It’s more about regulatory capture and making sure that their…

At least we get a choice whether we want our privacy violated by CCP, silicon-NSA complex, or Indian aristocracy
Post reply on HN