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Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

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Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#111

Post by RedCondor »

deciplex wrote: post #90
dvt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and trying to force every country around the world to adopt their 'values'. Hot take: Yes. Because classical liberalism, the free market, and bottom-up government has done more for the advancement of humankind than sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done. Let's stop pretending like all values have the same ethical valence.

Well, Marxism-Leninism did more good for the Soviet Republics in its first 40 years there (beating back an imperialist invasion, rapidly developing industry, beating the Nazis, putting the first man in space, raising the standard of living nearly to par with the West despite being a feudal backwater in 1917, etc) than capitalism has done for those countries since we finally beat them thirty years ago. And, public opi…

dang presents himself as a good fair arbiter then gimps any ML's ability to respond with sources against a dozen mediocre libertarians spouting the most vanilla ignorance imaginable.

Great posts, though!

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#112

Post by worrycue »

deciplex wrote: post #90
dvt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and trying to force every country around the world to adopt their 'values'. Hot take: Yes. Because classical liberalism, the free market, and bottom-up government has done more for the advancement of humankind than sharia law, tyrants, oligarchies, theocracies, or dictatorships have ever done. Let's stop pretending like all values have the same ethical valence.

Well, Marxism-Leninism did more good for the Soviet Republics in its first 40 years there (beating back an imperialist invasion, rapidly developing industry, beating the Nazis, putting the first man in space, raising the standard of living nearly to par with the West despite being a feudal backwater in 1917, etc) than capitalism has done for those countries since we finally beat them thirty years ago. And, public opi…

I wonder how much of the USSR’s success (until it wasn't) can be attributed to Marxism-Leninism rather than the fact that the country produced oil.

It’s like attributing the success of Saudi Arabia to its theocratical monarchy.

Oil is basically a cheat code for countries. If you have oil, you will do OK regardless of political/economical system.

Even then, the quality of life in the USSR was pretty poor compared to the capitalist West.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#113

Post by Tuna-Fish »

Georgelemental wrote: post #50
derefr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is becoming more liberal in the classical sense (more money accruing to regular "new money" entrepreneurs instead of to oligarchs); they just haven't hit the "borgeoisie-funded revolt against the aristocracy" phase of liberalization yet. Give them 50 years.

They hit it in the 90s, except it failed hard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests...

... That really wasn't what the Tienanmen Square Protests were about, at all.

The protest were a massive mixture of different ideologies, but the dominant ones were democratic politics, and communist economics, opposing the trend towards oligarchic/autocratic rule and liberalized economy.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#114

Post by eunos »

game_the0ry wrote: post #25

When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-your-e... [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)

> policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west.

There are many flavors of liberalism and yes 2023 China is more liberal than 1980 China.

If you could explain 2023 China to Deng Xiaoping in 1980 he'd think China would be a degenerate state.

The fethism with political liberalism above all needs to stop

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#115

Post by thaumasiotes »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #4

Much like Adobe did to Macs in the 1990s, WeChat has become so powerful they control the platform. Apple can’t remove WeChat because most consumers would rather change device hardware than lose access to WeChat.

> most consumers would rather change device hardware than lose access to WeChat

This seems like an understatement.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#116

Post by FireBeyond »

dvt wrote: post #47
goodbyesf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people (both poor and rich) are leaving china, places with sharia law, and moving to the west. The countries with the highest per capita immigration are in the middle east, not in 'the west'. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/mapped-immigration-by-co... Do you think they are moving to the middle east because of their love of sharia law? Or do you think they are moving they for economic opportunities? People…

Your point is straight-up bonkers and the data you yourself cite disproves it. Comparing the UAE (one country, an outlier at that, due to their subsidized incentives) to the collective immigration to Australia + USA + Western Europe + Japan + South Korea is beyond disingenuous. But hey, you do you. > much of the time because 'the west' invaded, destroyed or destabilized it You know who destabilized my country? The US…

> You know who destabilized my country? The USSR. I've heard nightmare stories from my grandparents and parents (who lived 35+ years under communism). Boy am I glad to be an American

Both things can exist at the same time. America plays a very equal role in world destabilization in the Cold War era to that of USSR, while also the USSR could be a nightmare under communism for the common person.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#117

Post by numpad0 »

bunga-bunga wrote: post #46
summerlight wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of its implementation, everything in the app is subject to the rule as long as it's distributed in the App Store. In fact, Apple tried to enforce the same rule on WeChat multiple times but gave up since it practically means giving up the entire China market.

> Regardless of its implementation Implementation is very much part of the rules. Apps cannot download and execute external code… unless it’s JavaScript in a browser. Nothing in the article suggests that WeChat apps are not plain websites, so it seems that they don’t know the rules nor the alleged rule breaker’s technical side. I wouldn’t exclude that WeChat really does get a pass from Apple, but the article does not…

A lot of these superapp mini-app can be just a link. It can be an in-app browser with static link to a college level javascript games page, maybe with credit purchase through native code going back and forth with URL parameters and callbacks. If you're doing superapps you're likely going for a janky bag full of features so that'll be fine.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#118

Post by interpol_p »

joshstrange wrote: post #5

I'm not sure this article has the slam dunk it thinks it does. Those aren't "apps" they are at best "web apps". They use a JS framework and some special markup from what I can tell. In this sense WeChat is more akin to a web browser than having multiple "apps" inside it. > Since these are “apps within an app”, many of these mini-programs are flouting the App Store rules since they were not downloaded from the App Sto…

It’s really dependent on what reviewer you get. I develop a coding app for iPad (Codea) and for the longest time was not allowed to let users share their code in any form. I asked the reviewer “but they can just copy and paste it?” And the reviewer said “that is ok.”

In the end, it was down to whether it _looked like_ your app was downloading executable code more than whether it actually did. Reviewers are non-technical, and when the policy is technical they often make an inference that may be incorrect — however they will not budge on that without consulting actual engineers further up the chain, which can take weeks

They have become a lot more relaxed about this policy in the last five years or so (ever since Shortcuts)

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#119

Post by handsclean »

xadhominemx wrote: post #65
game_the0ry wrote: post #25

When the west opened trade to China, policy experts assumed China would become more liberal like the west. Instead, the west is becoming more like China. [1, 2, 3] [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/googles-web-integrit... [2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/07/ready-for-your-e... [3] (countless more examples, especially recently...)

Your example for how the US is becoming more like China is… a crackdown on copyrights? Haha

Google’s “web integrity API” is a system to prevent use of software not authorized by a centralized, unelected authority. Even Google’s deceitful claims about it aren’t about copyright, but auth and anti-cheat.

Re: Apple’s strict on App Store rules but gives WeChat a free pass (2020)

#120

Post by chrysler »

deciplex wrote: post #97
dannyobrien wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beyond all the other contestable statements in your comment, I think you might have the biggest problem convincing the former Baltic Soviet Republics that they were doing better under the USSR versus now.

Yes, it's true - they're still very mad that their Nazi collaborators who helped murder tens of thousands of Jews during the war had to face actual justice instead of getting paperclipped off to the West.

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