The rest of the world really needs to free itself from American monopoly big tech.
It is simply unacceptable that I, a European in a European country, can have arbitrary apps on my phone blocked and removed by the whims of the American president.
Well, I think in Europe you could probably have regulators say that these apps have to be available in order for the companies to operate in the EU or in specific countries. Not that I think that's a good idea, and the EU's approach to try and placate both China and the US has been a failure in my view (both are just taking advantage of fragmented EU member state interests).
But let's take a broad perspective here. Countries all throughout the world can take actions that have consequences in other countries. The EU implements a tax on US tech companies or regulations (which I do largely agree with, but that's besides the point) and that affects me in the US. With a globalized world, it should be obvious that when the big movers make moves, things will reverberate around the world.
Here's another example, I am (if you take a look at my post history you can confirm this! :) ) a HUGE fan of the Apple App Store model. If the EU forces Apple to allow multiple app stores, I imagine Apple will do that in the US too. It is simply unacceptable that I, as an American in America, can have arbitrary rules and regulations imposed on me by the whims of the EU bureaucracy.
Blaming a foreign country for something Apple might do voluntarily (but most probably would not because they have to reason to harms their own interest) is absurd.
The Federal government's primary function is to regulate interstate and international affairs.
The Commerce Department choosing not to go that broad doesn't make it less concerning that they can go that broad.
I prefer to be able to install updates from one place.
But it is a tool, not a store, not a repository. One points apt at whatever repositories they want. Thus folks like Ubuntu can fork Debian but use the same apt tool; create their own repository & point /etc/apt/sources.list at their repository rather than Debians.
Apt goes further still. Debian doesn't/can't provide Google Chrome in their repos, but I can add a Google repository to /etc/apt/sources.list, and now my package manager can install Chrome. One can also do wild things like have both Debian & Ubuntu repositories listed in sources.list, and mix and match packages from the two, & manage/prioritize where to prefer to install from if unspecified.
In contrast, we see other comments mentioning F-Droid (which requires elevated permissions most users don't have access to, i believe) as a good shop, versus Play Store. But even if that is the case, there are now multiple separate managers running on a system, each tied to their own repository, where-as by contrast, if apt were running on a phone, it could manage whatever set of repositories/stores the user selected, in a consistent central fashion.
This model seems ideal to me. There are multiple repositories (stores) where one can install from, using a common, local package management tool that interfaces with these repositories. It has the upside of creating a good way to manage the system, & that manager can interface & harness many different sources of software concurrently.
They depend on others or they install malwares on their computers, do you want the same to be happening on their phones?
Specifically, he makes the argument that the "American" internet is favorable to creating companies b/c it's effectively a wild west (with limited regulations and laws which favor the corporations, along with a relatively-rich user base). This allows many companies to start in America and then expand globally, which in turn allows the US to exercise soft power abroad.
To change the status quo, in Europe in particular, would require either gov't intervention on what can be accessed via the internet (closer to what India is doing) OR more favorable laws to the creation of small tech cos (which unfortunately is not what regulation like GDPR accomplishes).
Not saying I agree with all of it, but it's interesting to think about the nation-scale incentives to create global internet superpowers.