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Comment by pcl | Hacker News Reader

> In Western markets, Apple and Google use app moderation to forbid apps from doing too many different things at once, so as to preserve their platform advantage.

I’ve never heard about this before. Is this an official policy of either company? Do you have any citations to share for more reading?

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I've mostly seen this for game platforms on iOS:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/valve-apple-wont-let-...

I think it's waffled back and forth on game streaming:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21357771/apple-cloud-gamin...

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/9/22826297/microsoft-xbox-x...

Netflix also has to offer their games as separate packages:

https://www.whathifi.com/news/netflix-games-will-reportedly-...

I don’t think these examples fit under “doing too many different things” but rather “loading apps by a method of which we do not approve.”

It’s part of the more generic “decide of its own destiny” direction Apple has been taking since the new Steve Jobs area.

Apple had a huge problem maneuvering its platform when it was at the mercy of two giant companies: Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft was in “friendly” terms and tremendously helped save the platform by bringing in IE and Office, but Adobe was a tougher rodeo (TrueType, Carbon, Flash etc.)

That’s in reaction to that history that the iPhone won’t give away the browser setting over its dead body, or competing App store where banned from the start (if it was just for the money, taking a cut of each transactions would be enough…)

Er, do you think that Apple and Google are going to come out and say "half of the point of our respective app stores is to be able to strike down app-based competitors and reave 30% of their take"? It may not have even been Apple and Google's intent to have app stores serve thusly, but it's clear that that's what's happening.

>Do you have any citations to share for more reading?

I suggest the works of Stafford Beer, a cyberneticist known for the quote "the purpose of a system is what it does".

I imagine theey also don’t want to have to deal with these super apps eating up significant resources on their devices, and even ultimately, having to make their devices serviceable (both technically and ideologically ) to one or a few pf these super apps.

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