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I’m saying that if you add that choice, it isn’t that technical users have more freedom and that’s bad. It’s that Apple users become pawns in a chess game against other tech Giants, who don’t want to follow Apple‘s rules whether it be for privacy, IAP, or other reasons.

Like I said with Facebook. If there was a private API that Apple doesn’t allow them to use that would make tracking users easier, they would happily force users to sideload so that they could use it. Smaller companies would not have the power to force users to sideload, so they would have to follow Apple rules while tech giants would not.

At this point, for better or worse, what started as sideloading has destroyed the App Store.

Lastly, as for why anyone would go for the trouble, are you really sure that some government agency wouldn’t force users to sideload an app someday? If it had to go through Apple approval, there would be a much bigger legal fight than if they could just force people to sideload it. There are other reasons than just ex-boyfriends, I’m just trying to come up with some examples.

>I’m saying that if you add that choice, it isn’t that technical users have more freedom and that’s bad. It’s that Apple users become pawns in a chess game against other tech Giants, who don’t want to follow Apple‘s rules whether it be for privacy, IAP, or other reasons.

Become "pawns" how? You're again saying that a user being allowed to load things on to their phone is Apple's responsibility. Literally nobody has said it would be Apple's responsibility and we've got a case in point: google. When you sideload an app, you're on your own.

>Like I said with Facebook. If there was a private API that Apple doesn’t allow them to use that would make tracking users easier, they would happily force users to sideload so that they could use it. Smaller companies would not have the power to force users to sideload, so they would have to follow Apple rules while tech giants would not.

Again, not Apple's problem. If a user is warned that enabling side loading exposes them to tracking, and the user decides to do it anyway, that's their prerogative.

>At this point, for better or worse, what started as sideloading has destroyed the App Store.

Destroyed what app store? Google allows sideloading, I think most people would describe their app store as thriving, not "destroyed"

>Lastly, as for why anyone would go for the trouble, are you really sure that some government agency wouldn’t force users to sideload an app someday? If it had to go through Apple approval, there would be a much bigger legal fight than if they could just force people to sideload it. There are other reasons than just ex-boyfriends, I’m just trying to come up with some examples.

They already force users to load apps directly, sideloading isn't necessary.

Right now, every developer will tell you that Apple is significantly more strict with what is allowed on the App Store than the Google Play store is. Not perfect, but more strict.

This has caused tech giants like Facebook considerable hurt. For example, the fact that they have to have those embarrassing privacy labels on their app in the App Store. Or that they have to present that prompt asking for permission to use the advertising identifier.

Right now, even though this hurts tech Giants, this benefits users. Google draws less than 1/10th of the data from an iPhone user as they do an Android user.

If sideloading was enabled, this check on their privacy rules would no longer exist because they could force users to sideload, which means they would immediately do so, and users would lose the benefits that Apple‘s restrictions give them.

If users want to sideload, They should buy an android where this check does not exist, and they can be on the less restrictive Google play store where it doesn’t matter. If they want Apple to constrain the power of apps to spy on them, they buy an iPhone.

Even though you might vehemently disagree with Apple, I respect the right of users to choose whether they want a restricted but more private experience, or less restricted but less private experience.

> This has caused tech giants like Facebook considerable hurt. For example, the fact that they have to have those embarrassing privacy labels on their app in the App Store.

They have the exact same embarrassing label on the Play store, and guess what, their Android app is also on that store. Even though they don't have to be.

The reason is that they have a lot more reach on a store than as a sideload.

The difference is that Google gives a lot more freedom to developers and businesses than Apple does.

> Even though you might vehemently disagree with Apple, I respect the right of users to choose whether they want a restricted but more private experience, or less restricted but less private experience.

That's a straw man. Nobody argued this.

We're just calling Apple's monopolistic, hegemonic behavior for what it is. As is Epic as we speak.

>I guess I don't get your point, if a user wants to sideload fortnite or facebook, good for them?

This will result in a few "must have" apps being side-loaded to start, and finish with people having to reinstall their phone operating systems every 6 months; to the detriment of the vast majority of users.

Do you not remember what the computers of regular people were like in the late 90's and early 2000's? I remember pretty much everyone non-technical having at least a mild malware infestation and at least one extra toolbar in their browser.

I'm quite happy that the free market created a solution that is more secure.

You could do this with android phones for +10 years, android is ~+%80 of the smartphone market and this does not happen in practice.

I think their point is the users would not get the choice to "want" to sideload. Fornite, Facebook, etc would pull themselves from the App Store and be sideload-only. Forcing users to choose between the security of their device, or their favorite games and social media apps.

Epic tried that on Android. It didn't work so well, so now they're back on the App store.