Would the number of scams in the top 1000 be higher than 2% if the App Store was not tightly controlled?
It doesn't follow that, since some bad things have gotten past the gatekeeper, we should get rid of the gatekeeper.
It doesn't follow that, since some bad things have gotten past the gatekeeper, we should get rid of the gatekeeper.
- A lot of users let their guard down because they blindly trust Apple’s marketing, and scammers take advantage of that.
- The fake ratings and reviews are making this even worse by leading people to believe other people have found some of these scams valuable.
I can see how a more trustworthy ratings system and a more honest marketing of the App Store for what it really is, could lead to fewer scams, even if Apple doesn’t control the App Review process so tightly - or doesn’t control it all.
This is the "a lot of scammers are better than a few sophisticated scammers" argument, which I disagree with. Users themselves have varying levels of sophistication (unsophisticated scams work just fine on some people), and there are other mechanisms like chargebacks which can unwind damage after the fact.
> The fake ratings and reviews are making this even worse by leading people to believe other people have found some of these scams valuable.
I have no insight into how well Apple is doing combating fake reviews, but no anti-abuse system is perfect. There is the same question here: would things be worse if Apple didn't police reviews at all.
The App Store is broken but it is the least broken of the app stores.
> Apple used to have a button, just under the ratings and reviews section in the App Store, that said “report a problem,” which allowed users to report inappropriate apps. Based on discussions among Apple customers on Apple’s own website, the feature was removed some time around 2016.
Why would they remove the ability for people to easily report apps?
If you "created" the equivalent in real life, in a 3D physical, brick-and-mortar sense, the law would generally be strictly enforced, and you would be able to get away with far less. That is, unless you are FAANG, which lobbies the US government--and other governments around the world for laws that give them an extremely huge "competitive advantage" over startups and mom-and-pop type establishments, along with allowing them to be "in compliance" but not adhering to the actual "spirit of the law". The actual spirit of the law is what the purpose of the law is in the first place. It is about affording people inherent rights.
The European Union has halfway decent laws on paper at best, that are extremely poorly enforced. Also, FAANG always finds a way to evade a penalty, anywhere in the world. The EU needs to step up its game, and I think they will, but of course, it will never be quite enough.