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While I am glad that you have the choice to be a digital serf - paying your lord for using land (devices), I would much rather prefer the choice to not be one.

That way, you can opt into digital serfdom and people like me can opt out.

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Serf here isn’t pejorative, but descriptive. Apple is behaving like a feudal lord. Down to the claims of protecting the land and arbitrating disputes.

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Why do you act like Android doesn't exist? You _can_ opt out of "digital serfdom".

How is Android any different?

In some cases one can install a de-googlified version of android, and install whatever app (.apk) they wish through alternative app stores or directly.

For 99.9% of people, Android and iOS will be virtually identical in terms of freedom, as they will just install apps from the play store and use google-services on the manufacturer-provided (and -bloated) android install that comes with their phone.

That being said, for those who do care, the ability to take control of your phone and run AOSP, an actually FOSS distribution, and only run FOSS apps, or install whatever app you want, is unparalleled on Android vs iOS.

Android is open source, there are several freedom respecting distributions of it. You can even get mostly freedom respecting hardware.

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