Hacker News Reader

Comment by absolutelyrad | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue that if apple didn't have a monopoly, we'd have stores that catered to privacy conscious people far earlier.

If apple didn't restrict the OS so much, you'd have people making their own Facebook clients, wouldn't have mattered if Facebook liked it or not. The monopolization of Facebook's control on personal connections is partially because of closed OS's. And Apple's iOS is one of the most responsible OS's that gave rise to Facebook's data monopoly.

Had it been like Windows, there wouldn't be a way that Facebook could've maintained their monopoly.

View on HN

There are other OS with a larger percentage of devices installed with other app stores possible. How many privacy focused stores do we see with privacy focused Facebook clients? How many of the users exercise those privacy options and give informed consent to share their data?

Hypotheticals can be argued either way but it’s just one possible option, not the only one.

The answer is chrome web store/firefox store and adblock/tracker block. They offer a hint into a more free future.

Imagine if adblock wasn't allowed on those stores. Today the equivalent is alternative clients to Facebook not being allowed on iOS and the App Store.

Look at YC startups like motion being built on top of the web. They are building on top of the network effects of gmail/google/facebook/slack etc. We aren't allowed any of that on mobile. Had they been allowed more access to the mobile OS's, they could be a very successful company. We haven't even touched the tip of cross OS productivity integrations.

> There are other OS with a larger percentage of devices installed with other app stores possible.

Like which ones? There's the AppStore, the PlayStore and that's it, nothing else is even worth being mentioned in terms of market share.

> If apple didn't restrict the OS so much, you'd have people making their own Facebook clients, wouldn't have mattered if Facebook liked it or not.

You're totally wrong on this. In fact, the first alternative FB clients I remember using sprang up on the iPad, before FB bothered to put a native app out for it.

What killed alternative FB clients was FB itself -- they've slowly closed off the APIs you'd need to access to make an alternative client optional. FB has also closed off their own alternative clients as well (FB Paper), and have been forcing users into their official web or native clients for a while.

I'm not sure that it really workout that way, you wouldn't have Facebook clients on these privacy conscious stores because FB wouldn't provide an open API which they could use. Otherwise are there any reasons why these client can't be published on the App Store besides that there no way to make one?

Instead it's probably more likely that FB would host Messenger and Whatsapp clients on their own app store with all the details hidden somewhere in the user agreement.

What’s the well-known privacy-conscious Android store that’s been running for a long time?

F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/io.kuenzler.whatsappwebtogo/

F-Droid proves your point.

Are there any "unofficial" Messenger apps on F-Droid?

F-Droid has a search box you could use to answer such questions for yourself:

https://search.f-droid.org/?q=facebook&lang=en

That was a rhetorical question. AFAIK the closest thing you can get is wrapper around messenger web app which (which by default doesn't work on mobile browser because FB wants to force everyone to use their native apps).

While it wraps their web app, I use Frost for Facebook, which is an open source app that lets me access Facebook messages on mobile without using any of Facebook's apps.

I thought that Facebook didn't allow for any unofficial clients, be it for Facebook itself or Facebook Messenger ?

How does using Facebook via another client prevent or diminish Facebooks data monopoly?

If you're serious about this question.

The the answer is: a competitor could build their services on top of Facebook. They wouldn't have to start from scratch. Independent client's mean if the one user trusts you with their data, you can provide them a bigger value.

Today you cannot innovate on top of Facebook. Their network effects mean if your service is superior, you need to beat the network effects first.

And Facebook cannot reasonably offer independent access because: Cambridge Analytica.

Independent client's do what they want without Facebook taking a hit on their reputation. No one blames apple for the crimes committed using their phones/computers do they?

I think that building a competitor on top of facebook is against their terms of service. You wouldn't be able to build an 'alternative facebook client', legally at least.

> I'd argue that if apple didn't have a monopoly, we'd have stores that catered to privacy conscious people far earlier.

That didn’t happen before the App Store and isn’t happening anywhere else after the App Store either.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com