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The App Store was always authoritarian

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Re: The App Store was always authoritarian

#5
post #2

Completely correct. The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to criminalise device manufacturers being in charge of what software runs on their devices.

Sounds like a right to repair argument. It will lose. Try putting linux on a windows-10 laptop. That BIOS is nailed down hard. It can be done but its a right PITA

Re: The App Store was always authoritarian

#6
I don't think Google has handled Android particularly well, but you have to be on some 1990s Netscape kool-aid to think that the web is or should be "the primary way for users to experience computing". Computing is just one kind of online service, and despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task. Computing through the use of such programs is not a bad thing. Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. Some of the fuckery-duckery Google has tried to pull with Android should be criticized, but it's not as cut and dry as "the web is open, everything else is proprietary vendor lock".

Re: The App Store was always authoritarian

#7
Heh, that’s all very cool and lots of smart words, but have you thought of children? Have you thought of elderly falling and unable to get up[1]?

Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda?

State surveillance on unprecedented level? Don’t be paranoid! Surely a state actor would never abuse the power to snoop for your private photos[2]!

Electronic waste? Duopoly? Censorship? Ownership? Those are made up words, comrade!

[1] - https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc

[2] - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-r...

Re: The App Store was always authoritarian

#10
post #6

I don't think Google has handled Android particularly well, but you have to be on some 1990s Netscape kool-aid to think that the web is or should be "the primary way for users to experience computing". Computing is just one kind of online service, and despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for…

> is a much better fit for the task

Such as?

> Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time.

It is a bad thing if it is

A) the only source of distribution

B) controlled only by the software vendor providing the OS

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