Before app stores, you could actually get real free software that didn't use customer data to finance themselves. Sustainable as a business? Perhaps not, but certainly an advantage to users.
Is that fine? If yes, I guess we'd need to make the "install anything" option sufficiently inaccessible to the regular user. Is that ok? In this case is Apple's Dev Program an acceptable solution?
I'm asking lots of questions, because I genuinely wouldn't know how to approach this. What this difficult is that I'm fine with the current state. I don't use my phone for hacking and I'm happy that someone else monitors apps, even if it means that I have to pay more or go through additional steps to run my own code.
Android's big scary full screen warnings didn't seem to work, people allowed weather apps to read their messages. I was referring to this in my earlier message:
> There is the danger that users aren't educated and would accept everything the app does. I'd say casual users want and expect some kind of protection.
This is a good way to kill Epic's fight.
If I want a hackable general-purpose computer, I can get one. I have one. The iPhone is not that. That's made clear at the time of purchase. It's a tradeoff between freedom and specific utility, and it delivers the latter in droves.
As a result, most Americans are fine with it. "Free software" is a great mantra from an important minority or Americans. But it's a minority nonetheless.
Big tech antitrust, on the other hand, is going mainstream. Epic's fight is riding that wave. Muddying it with an old and weaker argument is not helpful.
Then make the case. I think there should be general purpose computers. But not every computer need be one. There are advantages to a locked-down ecosystem.
I agree with it. But I think game consoles should be locked but smartphones shouldn't. Finally I predict that smartphones to be the Computer for citizen.