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The substantial lack of malware in the Mac world pre-dates the Mac AppStore, and numbers have not changed significantly since the introduction of that and/or Gatekeeper.

Gatekeeper is a commercial boiling-frog lock-in strategy sold as a security feature nobody asked for.

> open-source charities

Open-source, as a term, was invented in order to sell what was then called Free Software. It has nothing to do with charity.

> Curation is not a bad thing

Apple does little or no curation on the Mac AppStore, because the amount of developers using it is still relatively low.

> ... in part because of its laissez-faire approach to letting the user install anything from anywhere.

This comment makes it seem like installing software outside of a curated store is responsible for security issues, but this is exactly what Linux and other like OSes do. You can install apps from anywhere and I'll wager you'll find less malware, adware etc. for them in the wild, than the Mac. Granted usage of these platforms as a Desktop is way lower making it a less attractive target for bad actors, but much of it owes to inherent OS design.

> And if an open source application wants to become popular for the masses - not the HN power user crowd, which represents only a small percentage of potential customers - they have to conform to its rules.

Open source applications have been popular with the masses way before the curated store app store model came into place. Publishing on an app store has a good chance for increasing outreach, but it should not make distribution and installation of applications in the classical way more cumbersome, should the user so desire.

Most standard Linux repos are highly curated, with even distro specific patches and stuff.

The difference is that there is no rent seeking and you can choose your curator.

> As for poorer people and countries, isn't this where the open source charities come in? Isn't this where the big FAANGs - including Apple - and the investors and everyone that earned billions off of software should come in?

It would be hilarious if Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, etc. decide to start a charitable foundation which just deposits $99 checks into Apple's bank account. They should do it. I wouldn't be able to stop laughing.

>Curation is not a bad thing

Curation, in the sense that Apple uses the term, is a bad thing because it creates a false sense of security. It blurs the line between protecting users from security threats and protecting Apple's business interests.

If Apple was truly interested in protecting users, they would keep these things separate as much as possible.

But they're doing the exact opposite. They keep mixing these things up as much as they can in order to shield their questionable business practices from scrutiny.

On top of that, the iOS side-loading ban is clearly aiding and abetting human rights violations.

> Like all other legitimate software on MacOS; they get a developer account and distribute it via the app store (...) I mean come on, it's only $99.

So small utils and stuff, smaller open source projects etc. are not legitimate? Or should they shell out $99 extortion fee to have the pleasure of giving stuff away for free? This is just one of thousands cuts that will kill traction for Mac software.

You know that you could install on mac anything you wanted before appstore, and they were similarly malware free as now with appstore

What about Android vs iPhone malware levels? I believe there’s a lot more Android malware than iPhone/iPad.

I mention this since these stores are more comparable in size than Mac v Windows.

And yet people would vomit blood being asked to pay $99 for an app.

As you say it already worked great for preventing malware. No reason to make changes like they are doing.