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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

It's a common meme that "With a free service you're not the customer, you're the product." Well, you may be Apple's customer at the beginning when you pay for the phone, but immediately afterward you become their product. You're being sold for the 30% tax. And to enforce that tax Apple maintains ultimate control over the hardware you supposedly bought, blocking you from doing things that would threaten Apple's revenue streams.

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> "...immediately afterward you become their product. You're being sold for the 30% tax."

I don't understand the argument you're attempting. Apple doesn't sell my info "for the 30% tax." In fact, they charge app developers that 30% and then keep my data away from those same developers.

Apple sells access to your wallet, not data, similarly to how ad-supported services sell access to your eyeballs, not data.

To exclude other companies from accessing your wallet Apple must control the software running on your phone, which means blocking you from installing or modifying software on the device you supposedly own.

Developers then asks users 30% more so in the end users pay it. It's the same with increasing government taxes - at the end of the day, the end user ends up paying those. :)

The same way that GMail isn't really "free", that 30% tax doesn't come from Apple or the Developer's pocket, it ultimately comes out of your pocket.

But I don’t pay for any Google product, so the comparison isn’t apt.

Well, we could make similar arguments about something like Chromebooks. You pay for the hardware, but then Google expects you to store personal data in a Google cloud data center. Your data and access to you is the product. They use pre-installed software, e.g., Chrome, as well as numerous other read-only, auto-running programs, and automatic updates, as a way to enforce control, including testing user behaviour through Chrome. The situation is even worse on Android phones.

You could but you would be wrong because Chromebooks and Android phones support alternative methods of app distribution including both sideloading and competing app stores. Plus, the operating system itself is open source and the hardware is unlockable to run your own modified OS builds under your own complete control.

In particular, Fortnite is still available on Android with its new payment system after being removed from the Play Store.

Yes, but Google does not expect nor intend that users will use those alternative possibilities. The tests here are "Do they make it easy and encourage it?" and "What are the defaults?" The company does not support running an Android phone without using Google Play Store, does it? It is true Apple puts much more effort into locking users out, but to suggest because Google does not make that same effort the company is actually encouraging users (outside of Google) to run "modified OS builds" is not convincing. They neither encourage it nor expect it. Nor do they make it easy. The focus of the company is on encouraging users to accept the defaults. If those defaults were aimed at giving users "complete control" then there would be no need for the term "modified OS builds" because users would not need to make modifications. The defaults are aimed at sending data to the mothership. Google control.

If I want "complete control" I can use *BSD.

There are far more similarities than differences between the big tech companies. None of them offers the user anything approaching "complete control". Their employees must engage in no small amount of self-delusion to argue otherwise.

If Google is so different from Apple, why do they need a "Play Store" pre-installed on every mobile device. Where did they get that idea. Worse is that Google will use it to siphon more user data and feed its core business.

> The company does not support running an Android phone without using Google Play Store, does it?

Of course running an Android phone without the Play Store is supported by AOSP.

Your bias is very clear, but even you have to admit the fact that Fortnite is still available to any Android user who wants it, thanks to features that Google intentionally develops and enables in Android for the explicit purpose of enabling alternative app distribution methods.

If you are suggested I have an Apple bias, you are dead wrong.

BSD bias, maybe. ;)

Show me a mobile device Google is selling that has no Play Store.

As I said, the differences between the companies are very small compared to the similarities.

But employees and fanboys on both sides love to try to make the differences seem profound. They're not.

Fortnite, nor any other software, should not even have to go through a company "store" approval to run on hardware the user bought. Even you have to admit that, since you are the one mentioning so-called "sideloading". Jumping through these hoops should not even be necessary and you know it.

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