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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

I can go out and buy a windows machine if I want. Or a windows mobile phone back in the day, or an android phone today. There are so many alternatives to Apple products that if I wanted that kind of platform, it already exists and can be chosen! For Android…in China the play store basically doesn’t even exist, so phones with non-play stores aren’t rare at all.

So you basically want to force your preferences on me, and that really just annoys me. You don’t have to buy an iPhone or an iPad for yourself, you have other choices that better suit your needs, so leave my preferences alone please. I don’t like being told what I have to buy.

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> I can go out and buy a windows machine if I want. Or a windows mobile phone back in the day, or an android phone today.

A duopoly does not a free market make.

So that's why they are making the other platform more like the firdt one?

I mean, plenty has been written about the rationale behind the Digital Markets Act (DMA), but you could start with the EU’s own explanation:

> The Digital Markets Act is the EU’s law to make the markets in the digital sector fairer and more contestable. In order to do so, the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) establishes a set of clearly defined objective criteria to identify “gatekeepers”.

> Gatekeepers are large digital platforms providing so called core platform services, such as online search engines, app stores, messenger services. Gatekeepers will have to comply with the do’s (i.e. obligations) and don’ts (i.e. prohibitions) listed in the DMA.

> The DMA is one of the first regulatory tools to comprehensively regulate the gatekeeper power of the largest digital companies. The DMA complements, but does not change EU competition rules, which continue to apply fully.

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

I'm missing the part where someone is forcing you to install non-sanctioned apps. If Apple is adding all the value you say they are, what do they (and you) have to lose?

> So you basically want to force your preferences on me

No one is forcing you to install third party apps. Are you really unable to control the impulse to install third party app stores on your device? You need Apple to stop you from doing something you don't want to do in the first place?

Just because you want to stick in the Apple approved apps doesn't mean that I should have to do the same on my own iPhone.

Maybe I need the app but don't trust the altstore its developer is forcing me to use instead of App Store.

So don't install the app. Simple as that, if the developer wanted you to be a user of their app, they'd have put it on the App Store too.

IOS is a good platform because it forces large app developers that the users have no leverage over to behave. Now that is gone, unfortunately.

"No leverage"? What does that mean? I can choose not to install their apps. That's all the "leverage" I'm entitled to.

Why? Up until now I was entitled to choose a strong platform that forced the developers to play nicely. Now I lost that so indeed as you're saying, not using the app is my only choice.

But that's bad, I want the strong platform back. I left Android just few years ago precisely because I liked the guarantees of the iOS platform - now it's going to be just another shitty privacy nightmare like the hellscape of Android I left.

I don't understand why people can't just buy an Android if that's what they like.

Your argument works just the same the other way.

> I don't understand why people can't just buy an Android if that's what they like.

I don't understand why you people can't just use the apps they trust and let me use the ones I trust.

I should not have to buy a different device to have the ability to put the software I want on it, and the hardware vendor shouldn't be able to get in my way.

Why did you buy the device in the first place if it doesn't do what you want? And why do you think you are entitled to force its satisfied users to your ways? Just sell it, make a different choice and let us be happy with what we got.

This assumes there is one and only one reason to buy an iOS device, and it's because the platform is locked down. But that's not true is it? Is that the one and only reason you like iOS?

No, but it's one of them, and imho a very important one. You recommended I don't use the apps - I recommend you don't use the device. It's not like it's not possible to live without iPhone in Europe.

The magnitude of our recommendations differ quite a lot. The phone is the most important thing in your life. Changing it is very expensive, both in money and in your own time.

Changing which app you use is, in most cases, a far less costly endeavor.

If you were upset that an injustice was occuring where you lived, would you want people to tell you to move to another country?

So why did these people buy the device in the first place? They knew what they were getting into. Why do they have to break it for the ones who actually wanted it?

> There are so many alternatives to Apple products that if I wanted that kind of platform, it already exists and can be chosen!

Oh yeah so many alternatives, there's Android with an identical business model and hmmm ... yeah that's many already!

I just want to know: What choice do you think I'm trying to force on you? This argument only works if you force this into an us-vs-them dichotomy, but I'm an Apple customer that owns multiple Apple products, so this thing where some outgroup is trying to piss on Apple's parade is a delusion. But even ignoring that, do you think I'm trying to force Apple to force you to install Firefox? Because I'm not, and I'd love to hear what it is you think anyone wants to force you personally to install.

How long until ‘this app only works on browser X’ on mobile that is only available via a third party store? Not impossible. We’ve been spared that so far but happens frequently on desktop Safari even today.

I have an iPad and there's plenty of stuff I literally can't do with Safari on it right now. However, it's not everyone else's fault. Yes, some websites are stupid and do UA checking and intentionally block people on some browsers, but none of those websites are the problem, as all of those sites are not going to give up a vast quantity of iPad users even after Chrome and Firefox become available. It's not like macOS because iOS is not a minority in the world of smartphones, and iPadOS is definitely not a minority in the world of tablets. It's not like Internet Explorer or Edge because it doesn't suck shit through a straw.

The websites that are actually a problem? The ones that don't care. The ones that really could not give a shit less if it runs on your stupid iPad or not. Those are the websites that you can't use on iPadOS. And while the top 500 most popular websites are never going to act this way, this mentality is more widespread than you think. They do not care, and will not care, that Apple doesn't let you run an alternative browser on your tablet. Therefore, you simply miss out.

In addition, some web apps will just not be able to have good support on Safari because Safari just generally takes longer on standards. So instead, you will just not see support for Apple mobile browsers at all. Again, you come upon it a lot. It's not out of malice for iOS users, its that Safari just isn't as good at keeping up with web standards as Firefox and Chrome are. And yes, a lot of web standards suck, but a lot of them also don't and are made to resolve real problems with the web app platform, and look, if Apple's argument that you don't need sideloading is "just make webapps", then I think it's only fair to say that it's not a very good option when they have such inferior support for the standards that people are making to make better and faster webapps.

Apple's influence on web standards has always felt petty. They're the only company that has the specific kind of influence that they do because users can't simply opt to use an alternate browser; they compete in a totally different way than almost every other browser. They should have to compete on a level playing field. I reckon that suddenly, WebMs will start playing on iOS and iPadOS.

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