Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers • Hacker News Board

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#41

Post by fnord77 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

hugi wrote: post #30

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

I have a couple of friends who worked at google. they're always baffled why I would want to block trackers and data harvesters.

And I'm baffled why they're baffled. Is the koolaid that strong and that permanent there?

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#42

Post by Elidrake24 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

As a user of iOS, this is precisely why I go with Apple, and why I push my family to do the same. Particularly for the more elderly in my family, Apple's setup (by and large) prevents them from doing anything that would screw themselves over. Removing Apple's control removes my desire to be apart of that ecosystem, and I know that is true for many others outside our insular little community here.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#43

Post by TheDong » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:01 AM UTC

hugi wrote: post #30

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

It's not quite so black and white as that.

It's possible to run open source android phones (including without google play services) which protect your privacy pretty well. As part of android allowing more consumer control, there's a larger culture of open source apps, so you can get further with fdroid. Open source apps are usually pretty unlikely to compromise your privacy and harvest data.

On iPhones, it's true that the phone itself doesn't track you as much, but there's other downsides. You're unable to use firefox+ublock origin, so far more websites on iPhone will track you. There are fewer open source apps, so it's quite plausible you get tracked by more apps individually. There's no ability to uninstall default services whatsoever, again unlike android.

I think for the default user who doesn't make an effort to search out privacy-preserving software, an iPhone will probably harvest less data.

However, for someone who knows how to run LineageOS, install ublock on firefox, and install apps from fdroid, I think you can get a phone that harvests less of your data with android.

I also think that there are enough distinct data-points on each side of this argument that it's difficult to claim either is better with certainty.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#44

Post by imperio59 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

hugi wrote: post #30

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

Apple runs its own Ad network for app advertisements. They conveniently do not need to deal with iOS 14 requirements when it comes to using their users' data to target ads and track app installs in their own network. Can you say monopoly power?

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#45

Post by harry8 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

hugi wrote: post #35

diogenesjunior wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google LOL. Instead of bowing down to one master, you chose to bow down to the other?

I choose to spend my money on devices from a company that's explicitly and repeatedly stated that their mission is privacy. But if you choose to buy phones from ad companies, it's your decision.

They'll flip the nanosecond it suits them. Their commitment isn't valuable or enforceable or anything other than a dodgy sales pitch. Really.

They can encode it in contact in a second and choose not to.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#46

Post by fnord77 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:03 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #39

hugi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

You may feel you're safer, but there is no proof that Apple implements better privacy practices than Google. There are a lot of different vendors that provide Android without Google services and you can also unlock your bootloader and install a custom ROM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib... Last, Google allows you to disable their activity history and other options that may be concerning…

there is proof - recently researchers showed google phones send an order of magnitude more data to the mothership than Apple does.

Of course that's at this point in time. Tomorrow Apple could turn around and be worse.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#47

Post by hugi » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #40

hugi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

It is possible for a company to do multiple things, sometimes even conflicting with each other. Google is an ad company, and a hardware/smartphone company, and an enterprise collaboration company, and a cloud hosting company, and lots more. Similarly Apple is a hardware company which is getting more and more of its revenue from digital sales, subscriptions and even advertising every year. They can and do track their…

> It is naive to think that any company at that scale has your best interests at heart. They will do whatever it takes to make more money, period.

Exactly. And Apple makes money of privacy. It's their thing.

Google's business model is based on abusing my privacy.

Apple's business model is based on securing my privacy.

That's why I use Apple stuff and won't touch Google with a 10 feet pole.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#48

Post by sneak » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

hugi wrote: post #30

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Google is an ad company. I do not understand why people would choose to use an operating system created by an ad company, designed to harvest their personal information. I'm happy to use an iPhone, knowing my personal information is safe and it reduces my chances of being Harvested by Google.

The iPhone and iPad transmit their fixed and unchangeable hardware serial number to Apple every time you open the App Store, like a permanent supercookie.

Apple has just as much reason to harvest your personal information and track you in their App Store as anyone else.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#49

Post by tracer4201 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

I specifically buy Apple products because I trust their App Store. I trust Apple with my information. I’m counting on these guys to get out software I download from the App Store. And I trust them to protect my privacy, better than anyone else.

You’re calling them anti consumer. But that’s wrong. This is why I give them my business, and if they bowed to pressure so people can execute whatever software on my device, I’d exit the Apple ecosystem and buy a $300 phone instead of a $1000 phone. It’s actually that simple.

Edit: Sitting at -2 votes because people don’t approve of my consumer habits. Censor people you don’t agree with instead of having an actual response. Okay.

Re: Dominance of Apple and Google’s app stores impacting competition and consumers

#50

Post by madeofpalk » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 2:05 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #23

You can have third-party Android app stores. Can you say the same about Apple? While I agree that Google has market-dominance, they are not anti-competition or anti-consumer in the same sense as Apple. Android is open source, Chrome OS is open source, etc. Google is actually providing and contributing something back to the community. Apple intentionally locks people to specific hardware and to their app store.

Let’s not pretend they do these things as charity.

Chrome is open source because, as a fork of WebKit, it has to be. For other things, they use open source to drive adoption.