Therein lies the rub. Consumer welfare has no definition[0].

[0]: https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=897001005069000...

Been using computers since... oh, '91 or '92, Apple stuff only since ~2010. Having at least one platform I can use as an actually-useful-in-real-life tool without constantly having to scrutinize and second-guess and mistrust and un-fuck everything is damn nice. They could absolutely be better—a lot better, yes bad stuff gets into the store, yes some practices like loot box gambling really ought to be on their naughty-list except those make them tons of money, et c.—but I like having an option for that kind of experience—even if it's far from perfect, even if they're not as privacy-respecting as they claim, even if App Store rule enforcement and sandboxing protections are less than 100% effective, et c.—especially with government asleep at the wheel, regulation-wise. I like that Apple's in a position to force other companies not to be shitty, while also having an ecosystem too tempting for those companies to ignore. That's great for me.

I'd rather the worst behavior they protect against were simply illegal. I'd rather Apple had other competitors offering similar things (though, absent regulation, that kinda depends on their leveraging monopoly power, so it's hard to see how robust competition would fit into that dynamic). I'd rather no companies were as big as Apple (or Microsoft, or Google, or Facebook, or...) with hands in as many pies. But given the broader environment I'd rather have Apple the way it is, than broken up or destroyed. Ideally, yes, that's what would happen, but the rest of the situation's far from ideal. Fix some of that first, so losing them doesn't remove an option I like having, and I'm with you, let's break them up.

> That's an awfully vague demand.

It's a response to saying Apple needs to be "reined in" which is hardly a concrete proposal.

It's been discussed to death on here.

One side believes there's a risk of companies leaving the App Store if that monopoly's broken, which would make things worse for them than the current situation.

The other thinks that's bullshit because that hasn't happened on Android.

The first notes that Android hasn't restricted Facebook practices such that Facebook's blaming them for significant earnings misses, so, you know, things might play out a little differently on iOS than it did on Android, and also this group prefer the status quo to even the best-likely outcome from shaking that up, so no amount of risk to it is worth it to them (us).

Except usually instead of writing it out plainly like that, the pro-Apple poster writes something shorter and less well-considered, probably assuming certain parts of that are obvious and don't need to be written out, the other jumps on it, a flamewar ensues, and the next time around we get a sea of comments that are like "I just don't understand how this would hurt Apple-lovers, they can just stay on the App Store" and it all repeats.

thinking of "freedom" as a singular thing that exists is misleading, there's multiple kinds of freedom, that's why GPL exists vs BSD/MIT, there is an inherent conflict between end-user freedom vs developer freedom and the obvious solution (MIT "do anything you want" license is more free than one with licensing stipulations and limitations, right?) doesn't actually maximize freedom for everybody.

We literally already are in a situation where people have opted into a more closed garden, that's the Apple model right now, and people are arguing that it needs to be forcibly opened up, which effectively destroys the walled-garden model. Like, the reason Facebook and Google are arguing that isn't because it's the right thing to do and they're on your side, they're doing it because app review is successfully and significantly holding back their spyware bullshit and this is the mechanism they want to use to get around it, they've found the most-appealing argument that will get nerds arguing on their side to produce the desired outcome. But ultimately they're not arguing for your freedoms here, just like Sony wasn't arguing that they should have to open up their own app store on ps5. They are arguing for their freedoms, not end-users.

Facebook literally already got caught using their dev credentials to deploy a spyware build to users who opted in to additional surveillance that normally would have been prevented by the walled-garden. If you "open it up", the next step is Facebook withdraws their app from the normal app-store, and now you need to install the Facebook App-Store to use facebook, which will demand full permissions to spy on everything, just like their spyware build already did with the dev credentials. This shit is literally already ready to go, they just need the ability to pull the trigger.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...

Yes, in a notional sense it will be "optional", in the sense you can choose to just not use google or facebook, but in the real world people need those things if they want to maintain their social networks/etc, so in effect merely allowing sideloading to exist completely neuters any possibility of a walled garden existing at all, especially against the largest players from whom you need the most protection. There are dozens of horoscope apps or whatever, there is only one facebook, so you play by their rules or you don't play, that is what the walled garden is really about preventing. Apple is using their leverage to hold back some of the facebooks of the world from preying on users with permissions bullshit and spying.

If you want to "allow some people to choose a walled garden" that's the apple position here. You can still choose a not-walled-garden option for yourself personally, if you want. People are ideologically opposed to the walled-garden existing at all, they want it eliminated, not as merely a choice. It's sort of like the people who "aren't pro-abortion or anti-abortion, they just think everyone should have all the information and as safe an environment as possible and can make their own choice". Congrats that's the pro-choice position, and if you want the option of being able to choose a walled garden but nobody is actually forced to use it then congrats, that's the apple position here, go buy an android phone. Nobody is arguing you shouldn't be able to buy an android like people are arguing about apple, these sides aren't equivalent at all. It is quite literally an "anti-choice" argument from the android side here, they want that choice to be eliminated and walled gardens to cease to exist entirely.

To go back to the original point, BSD/MIT vs GPL... Apple is the GPL freedom model in this situation. Apple is concerned about maximizing end-user freedom even if it kills developer freedom, and even if some specific kinds of user-freedoms are decreased. Yes, you are giving up the ability to sideload apps for free... and that restriction allows the app-review model to exist, which protects user freedoms in the bigger picture. Android is the BSD model, anything goes, and that means giving freedom to large players whose interests run counter to users' interests and user freedoms as a whole. You have lots of freedom on Android, as long as they're freedoms to use google services or facebook or wechat or other closed proprietary all-in-one platforms. And if you want to run google-less replacement builds... go for it but that's not the experience 99.9% of people get out of android, they are just as locked-in to google services as apple people are on apple, but they also get much less protection via app-review etc.

(and again, reminder that sideloading has NEVER been unavailable on ios... it's just not free. the cost of sideloading apps is $99 a year. If you allow anyone to do sideload with no friction, then you just enable the facebooks of the world to demand that you do it, there has to be a friction there if the walled-garden model is ever going to exist.)

And besides app review... in the big picture... what do you think happens when iOS Safari gets killed off? Google already has a basically 95% monoculture of Chrome and Chromium-derivatives (like Edge). When you look at how manifest-v3 has been handled (contrary to the interests of end-users), do anybody really think Google crushing the last 5% of the market that's holding out is going to result in more end-user freedoms? Safari on IOS is a bulwark that nobody likes using but it holds back an ocean of salty consequences if Google can assume complete control of the Browser-As-An-OS platform. Like yeah Safari iOS is trash but it’s load-bearing trash as far as the broader internet and google monoculture...

Yes I have. Yes it is.

Very little. The devices & OS are otherwise better-enough than the competition (in the case of iOS, the sole competitor, which goes a long way to explaining why the market sucks so bad) that I'd still be buying them absent app store regulations, so that doesn't count, and anyway the premium's pretty low if you're comparing them to actually-comparable products and factor in resale value. I think the 30% cut (which isn't always that high, these days, for smaller players) of my purchases amounts to low-tens of dollars per year and almost all of that is from a single subscription. So, less than I spend on any one streaming service.

Yes and recent years they're great traders anyway. High ROI then many funds and market avg. Great people

Yeah but some things would never have seen the light of day. The M1 chips for example were a huge investment that wouldn’t have been made without the behemoth that is Apple behind it.

You have to be able to pivot your company. You can't just pick a niche and stick with it if you don't know how profitable it is.

Where do you want to draw the circle ?

Sony is allowed to sell the Playstation but not the controllers. Tesla would be forced to have their car support other operating systems. Leica could sell cameras but not lenses.

Your idea is completely unworkable.

Isn't antitrust law supposed to protect something you can't see or touch: fair competition. Fair competition should be protected. Lack of competition is bad.

It helps consumers until it doesn’t. If we follow your logic back to the day, every company would be owned by rail or our economy would look like SK where half the gdp is Samsung.