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Apple vs. the "Free Market"

pluralistic.net

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Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#81

Post by rchaud »

areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

While the examples are all valid, the restrictions don't apply on mobile Safari. Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps?

FirefoxOS had the right idea, make the browser the principal gateway for applications. It was a decade ahead of its time, but the mobile web is now at a level where native apps aren't needed for the most part.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#82

Post by katzinsky »

KolmogorovComp wrote: post #49
areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

Aren’t you free to load any OS you like? Not trying to justify anticompetitive behavior from Apple here, but tired to see people saying ‘do you own it?’ when they really mean ‘does the manufacturer help installing third parties apps on its default OS’.

Not on an iPhone. I'd probably buy one today if that were allowed.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#83

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight.

Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#84

Post by tazu »

rchaud wrote: post #81
areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

While the examples are all valid, the restrictions don't apply on mobile Safari. Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps? FirefoxOS had the right idea, make the browser the principal gateway for applications. It was a decade ahead of its time, but the mobile web is now at a level where native apps aren't needed for the most part.

> Why do corporations and devs continue to accept a share cropper role by paying Apple to host native apps?

Push notifications.

That's it, and presumably why Apple waited 8 years[1] before allowing them on iOS PWAs.

[1]: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/push-notifications-on-the-...

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#85

Post by scblock »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #54
adesanmi wrote: post #31

If Patreon doesn’t like Apple’s rules, they should just take their app off the App Store. All these companies moaning about Apple yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave. If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Apple’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Apple wants. I support creators on Patreon, what exactly is wrong with just doing everythi…

"If Netscape doesn’t like Microsoft’s bundled IE with Windows, they should just take their app off the Windows OS. All these companies moaning about Microsoft yet aren’t doing the one thing they have the power to do which is just leave. If they refuse to leave, then they’re admitting that Microsoft’s platform is providing value to them and they should pay what Microsoft wants." The irony is striking: Microsoft (Windo…

Patreon is a web site. It shouldn't even have an app.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#86

Post by katzinsky »

marxisttemp wrote: post #13
brigadier132 wrote: post #4

Apple's product is its users. All of the privacy changes are not to protect the privacy of their users, it's to ensure that there are no ways to access Apple device users without Apple being the middleman.

I wouldn’t say all of the privacy changes or even the majority of them are to ensure lock-in, but they have certainly been using their privacy stance as a pretext for lock-in.

If Apple cared about privacy ssh would be well supported OOTB and you'd be able to build your apps from the source.

There's no way to do this, even if you pay all the fees push notifications won't work unless you publish to the app store and that will get rejected for being a duplicate.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#87

Post by katzinsky »

vundercind wrote: post #37
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #26

General computing devices like smartphones should allow users to install whatever they want without any cost or restrictions.

Ok, but then I’ll need another kind of locked-down device provided by a company with enough power to force other strong companies to not be dicks, to do all my actually-important-in-normal-life computer stuff.

This isn't a problem on Linux because instead of force you have a small group of maintainers who the users are able to outsource the decision making to.

There are other ways to do this which work much much better and don't constrain the user's freedom.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#88

Post by matwood »

brigadier132 wrote: post #47
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is the only big tech company left that even pretends to care about privacy and does even a half-assed job of it. If they're doing it in part for self-interested reasons, that's fine. It's better than nothing. Their cloud storage product even has on-device encryption. Nobody else offers that, and in fact AFAIK Google and some of the others even have it listed as against their ToS. They're also working on privacy…

Freedom to run the software you choose on your own device is the only way to have actual privacy. What you have right now is just a centralized store of all your data on Apple's servers.

Sure. And maybe where we end up is the iPhone hardware is open to install other OSes on.

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#89

Post by dartos »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #83
areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple pro…

It’d be the mid 2010s google play store

Re: Apple vs. the "Free Market"

#90

Post by lbwtaylor »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #83
areoform wrote: post #39

> Tumblr still remains heavily moderated and heavily censored. Why? Because Apple kept kicking Tumblr out of the App Store on the basis that it contained sexual material, and without Apple users, Tumblr was dead in the water > Apple claims this is merely a matter of "editorial standards," no different from a bookstore deciding not to shelve pornography. The difference is that in this case, Apple can block you from pa…

You do not. This has been established for quite some time. You’re not forced to purchase Apple. If you like Apple, you know you’re getting the ecosystem that comes with it. Honestly the App Store is already garbage with the heavy amount of moderation it has. I can’t imagine what a cesspool it would be without that oversight. Admittedly, I’m a fan of this approach. I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple pro…

>I like it. If I didn’t, I just wouldn’t buy Apple products. I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people.

Because Apple is so aggressive about lock-in that it excludes reasonable interaction between people with Apple and people without. The texting situation with pictures and videos is the most glaring example. You are not forced to purchase Apple products, except that you are.

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