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Comment by zztop44 | Hacker News Reader

My fear is that if I want to download Skype or Teams, I’ll need to first download the Microsoft Store app, and then sign in, and then download the app I want. And the store will be slow and shitty and packed with ads. Likewise for Meta, Adobe, every big game publisher, etc. And my subscriptions will end up spread across multiple different stores rather than all in one place.

That feels like the natural direction App Store competition would take us. But, on the other hand, it doesn’t seem to have happened on Android, so maybe I’m being overly pessimistic.

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>My fear is that if I want to download Skype or Teams, I’ll need to first download the Microsoft Store app, and then sign in, and then download the app I want. And the store will be slow and shitty and packed with ads

I'm not sure I see the problem here. If some apps are only available through shitty ad-packed vendor-controlled stores, then hopefully that'll push people to simply avoid them. I mean, if I want to video-chat with someone and to use Skype/Teams I have to download the Microsoft store app and suffer with all that, or I just could use Facebook Messenger on the regular Google Play store (assuming they don't force their own store like MS) and it's easy, I'm going to tell my friend, "let's use FB Messenger instead; these MS apps are a pain in the ass." And if someone insists on using some shitty MS app that I can only get through the shitty ad-laden MS Store, I might re-evaluate how much I really want to chat with them. Smarter app vendors are going to try to avoid putting their users through that experience.

(Also, this is just an example; for all I know, Meta/FB in this possible future would be the stupid one pushing an ad-laden store while MS might be the smarter one making it easier for users to install their apps.)

Plus, I'd add that this is only an issue for apps with a high network effect.

For everything else I'd expect publisher's to just put their app in my favorite place, or risk me choosing something else.

For example im not going to install a new store just to get a note-taking app, unless that app was in some definitive way superior to all the others. (Which seems unlikely for a note taking app.)

Yes, exactly: new stores means much higher friction for consumers, so they're much more likely to choose an easier-to-install alternative unless there's something about that app that either requires them to use it (e.g. work) or its reputation is so much better.

So if it doesn’t affect apps with low stickiness, and the network effect will ensure that large publishers benefit from it, what’s the benefit for me as a user?

The issue is many stores use dark patterns and you may not catch on until too late. - Subscriptions impossible to cancel - Silent auto-renewal - Silent price changes - Hidden Fees - Sales of purchase history - Apps released under known brand that are off brand knock offs. - Apps bundled with added cruft (think those download.com installers that installed toolbars and whatnot). - Pirate versions of Teams through off brand store causing licensing audits

A lot of dumber app vendors will just drain the suckers dry and rebrand and if Microsoft pulled their apps from the App Store some unfortunate souls would click the first Google hit and get sucked into the scam.

If my workplace says I’m using teams, then I’m using teams. There’s no way to change that.

> And if someone insists on using some shitty MS app that I can only get through the shitty ad-laden MS Store, I might re-evaluate how much I really want to chat with them.

It’s comments like this that show a huge lack of understanding of how the majority of people feel. I don’t give a shit if my parents like WhatsApp, but I still want to talk to them. And it’s hard enough to get them to use technology, never mind navigating whatever is to come here.

Are you honestly telling me that you think Meta are going to not use this opportunity to skirt around the limits placed on their apps by the apple App Store? If you believe meta, or byte dance are going to have your best interests at heart, I have a bridge to sell you

But it has sort of happened on Windows with gaming. I’ve got games on Steam, GOG, MS Store, and Epic. It’s annoying and I very much preferred the state of things a decade ago when it was just Steam.

Android has curated a market of users who don’t buy apps. I don’t know that we can extrapolate their alt-store outcome to iOS where the buyers are.

> I very much preferred the state of things a decade ago when it was just Steam.

Do you think you'd have all those sales every 2 months if Steam were still the only pc games store? :)

Steam was doing sales before the other stores popped up and I was acquiring games faster than I could play them even then. Increasing sales frequency means little to me, and is even a little annoying since I now feel like I should be constantly window shopping all the stores nearly year round to make sure I get the best sale price on something I'm after.

Epic has given a lot of free titles away, which is a big difference, but only because they're trying to buy favor and want to be the winner who takes all.

I very much preferred the state of things a decade ago when it was just Steam

Ok, but Steam is a third party store. The alternative isn't "just Steam", it's "just Microsoft". I'll gladly accept the occasional annoyance of multiple stores to avoid being locked into a monopoly.

Steam predates MS selling games within their first-party OS-bundled apps, so it's not the exact same situation to begin with.

> and the store will be slow and shitty and packed with ads.v

But both Apple and Googles stores are slow and packed with ads. Pretty much every search you do for an app even with the exact name gives you some ad supported shovelware as the first one or two results (ads).

So how is this meaningfully any worse? (outside of one more login you might need to setup).

The PC gaming industry is a perfect example of this. In the last 5-6 years I have had to install and use the following game stores:

* Epic's Launcher

* EA's Origin

* Ubisoft Connect

* Steam

* GOG

* Xbox Store

* Battle.net

I had a brief Gatcha game phase (before I realized how pay-to-advance it was) and that game had its own damn game-specific "launcher" as well.

Each one of these required creating an account, installs its own "overlay", background windows services, anti-cheat system (more background services!), has its own "social" system, and defaults to running at startup and minimizing (not quitting) when you click the window-close button unless you dig through the options.

Of course, each one of these games also has at least one type of currency unique to the game, which you can only convert in one direction, nor is there any way to move currency in the "store". Often that currency, and anything you bought with it, is locked to the particular platform on which it was purchased.

It's a complete mess, and nearly every single one of them is worse than Steam in terms of UX design and features.

Do we see any competition, resulting in lower prices, better terms of use for customers, or better quality software? Nope. Games are as expensive as ever, have even worse day-of-release bugs, more cheaters, and more microtransactions. Games are exclusive to one particular store either indefinitely or during the period after its release.

But according to Epic, why...if Epic can make its own app store for iOS, consumers will benefit! Bullshit. All that will happen is we'll have to install multiple app store apps on our phones, having each one collect data constantly about us...

> Of course, each one of these games also has at least one type of currency unique to the game, which you can only convert in one direction, nor is there any way to move currency in the "store". Often that currency, and anything you bought with it, is locked to the particular platform on which it was purchased.

On steam and GoG you pay with government issued currency. If the others have a currency system just hard pass on them. If you could cure yourself of Gacha, you can do it.

It’s actually worse than on PC imo. Apple have a set of standards (google do too but slightly less so) that means that every app has to support Apple Pay and login with apple. This means I’m not giving my details to random third party with popular game, and I can try it and even spend money on it. With this new order, you can bet that I now have three different subscription management platforms with different rules, for example

> Do we see any competition, resulting in lower prices, better terms of use for customers, or better quality software? Nope. Games are as expensive as ever, have even worse day-of-release bugs, more cheaters, and more microtransactions. Games are exclusive to one particular store either indefinitely or during the period after its release.

The gaming industry has enormous amounts of monetization and gameplay innovation, with the huge and vibrant middle that is disappearing from movies, books and music, so I have no idea what you’re talking about. It has never been a better time to find games.

> But according to Epic, why...if Epic can make its own app store for iOS, consumers will benefit! Bullshit. All that will happen is we'll have to install multiple app store apps on our phones, having each one collect data constantly about us...

Most of Epics arguments are that the developer will benefit by them taking a smaller cut then Apple/Google/Steam/etc so if they sell the game for the same price the developer gets to keep a couple percentage points more money.

I don't remember any argument they have made that has put the customer as the beneficiary though there probably are some.

You assume that just because Apple maliciously complied with the EU law by implementing alternative app stores, it means this is the solution.

The solution is to allow sideloading by the user (which incidentally Google allows you to do).

I think more likely: The app store would be embedded in the first app that you download. And could be seamlessly integrated like MS Teams or FB.

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