You couldn't easily install software on phones before smartphone app stores; the app developer had to make a deal with individual carriers to allow it.
My mom searched for a printer driver and ended up installing some third party crap wars on her computer
I've said it before, I'll say it again, as many times as people need to hear it: There is no such thing as, "I'm just not a computer person!" We're over and done with that era of human history. Just like we're over and done with, "I just can't read and write!" Too bad. You live in a world were reading and writing is required just to exist. It's been that way for about 100 years, give or take depending on who you ask.
Now you need to have basic understanding of computers and the Internet. That's the world we're living in now.
Should we ban cars since there are people who cannot drive?
The point is that if you are the owner of the device you get to choose what to do with it, not Google. If the trade off for that freedom is an increased risk of malware then so be it. The people that want to only use the Google Play store as their source of software are free to do so, that's the beauty of your device being /your/ device.
I’ve also known since then that if I wanted an open device, I bought one and not complained about a device that I knew going in that I couldn’t program.
The point is that this isn't 1986 anymore and when everyone's devices are locked down it prevents competition because there's no distribution method for homebrew software. If there was no ability to install custom OSs on IBM and IBM-compatible machines we wouldn't have Linux. And if Microsoft was the gatekeeper of what websites could be displayed on IE in the 90s we wouldn't have the web in the form we know it today. So sure, you personally may be able to buy development boards specifically but when you can't get your software to the average person's device, what does that mean for adding competition to the market?
I'd much rather live in a world where being more open means there might be some malware lurking as opposed to one where everything is so locked down that I am at the mercy of what these large corporations deem acceptable for me to do on hardware that I "own" in the name of safety and security.
There is very much a choice of homebrew applications - buy one of the “few” devices you admitted existed and develop for it.
You could even buy one of the Linux phones.
> So sure, you personally may be able to buy development boards specifically but when you can't get your software to the average person's device, what does that mean for adding competition to the market?
The “average” person decided that they didn’t care about obtaining homebrew applications enough to buy such a device.
> I'd much rather live in a world where being more open means there might be some malware lurking as opposed to one where everything is so locked down that I am at the mercy of what these large corporations deem acceptable for me to do on hardware that I "own" in the name of safety and security.
And you are free to make that trade off and buy such a device.
Your view seems to be that the free market will solve all ills then and that if this was really something so important then the average consumer would care about it and change the situation. However, 100+ years of anti-trust laws would disagree with this position. It should be fairly obvious that building a new mobile ecosystem would require an insane amount of investment to the point that it's essentially impossible now. As such, the conclusion that "everyone who cares can just buy a Linux phone" is not a viable solution as it's not feasible for a competitor trying to do that to survive long enough in the industry before being run into the ground due to the anti-competitive behavior of Apple and Google locking everyone else out of access to their operating system's users outside of their formal, approved channels.
If we relied on the average person to act in the interest of ensuring viable competition can enter a market we'd be living in the world of the early 1900s with completely vertically and horizontally integrated Standard Oil type corporations controlling every industry. Not that we're too far off from that currently unfortunately, but your view of letting the free market control who has adequate access to potential marketshare in a given industry is incredibly naive and illustrates the exact reason why we need anti-trust laws in the first place and enforcement of those laws. That's all I have to say on the matter.
I saw plenty of people who never installed anything because it was PITA.
There’s a reason the App Store revolutionized things.