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Comment by alextingle | Hacker News Reader

Isn't the possibility of side-loading one of the main things protecting Google Play Store from being hammered by the Digital Markets Act?

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The possibility of sideloading != the possibility to side load specific apps that their developers don't want to be side loaded

If that's the case it's just a matter of time before the EU regulates away this anticonsumer choice by Google and the app developers.

they won't, it was clear that Google would also embrace malicious compliance, it's just the first steps so far

Yes that's how the game goes. The regulator has to keep plugging holes that the non compliant corporate entity finds until there are no more holes worth exploiting by the corporate entity.

It is an exhausting and practically unending task to defend consumers against malfeasant operators but it is one that governments can and must do.

What is anti consumer about an app developer only allowing their app to be installed through the play store? Genuinely wondering.

It restricts the users choice to use the device that they own in a way they want with the software that own in a way that they want.

To be fair, a manufacturer also has a right to choose how they distribute their product. If one is philosophically ok with piracy, then you can choose to ignore that, but I don't think you should expect the developer to actively facilitate that.

That is correct, they currently have that right.

I am suggesting a scenario where a regulator decides that they no longer have that right because the regulator feels that the needs of the consumer outweigh the needs of the manufacturer.

This would be similar to how regulations around interoperability and accessibility where the regulator decides that imposing such obligations on developers leads to a better society.

Their rights stop at that border, how they choose to distribute. They have no rights after that beyond the copy right.

Software is out of step with hardware at the moment but we do have principles that means "warranty void if removed" stickers are toothless decorations, and Keurig has no right to actually enforce their wishes about what coffee you brew in your machine. We don't currently have software analogs for those, but the principles hold the same.

That's a completely different fight from what the DMA targets though. Referring to this as an Android/Google Play thing is a red herring here, this is just bog standard DRM, which just so happens to be made by Google (and maybe gets some special hardware support; so, if anything, DMA here would be an argument for allowing other app suppliers to be able to make equivalent DRM!).

That would be an improvement. You would enforce integrity in a play store agnostic way, something that other OSes have been asking for (https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...).

The verification that the user downloaded the app from the Play Store has hardly anything to do with DRM.

They claim its raison d'etre is allowing "better download metrics" and control on the kinds of devices allowed to run the app; those reasons hardly justify forcing going through the Play Store (and having, and associating, a Google account).

Indeed there's no benefit to users from an app being arbitrarily tied to the Play Store, but that's entirely equivalently so to how there's no benefit to users from any sort of DRM.

Perhaps "digital rights management" isn't exactly the thing to use here, but it's still the same general concept of "author of a specific piece of media/content/app adds an arbitrary technological restriction that doesn't directly benefit users in any way (while ideally not affecting intended proper users) but still potentially helps the author".

It's harder to see for free apps, but for paid ones it's utterly trivial - of course you're gonna have to buy it through the Play Store with a Google account if the author has decided to only sell it on the Play Store; and afterwards wanting to use it without Google Play interference is equivalent to wanting to access media without DRM after having bought it (i.e. reasonable desire, perhaps not even illegal to attempt to achieve through arbitrary means, but owners of the respective thing can still try their damnedest to prevent you from it).

Well, here the app authors as well gain very little, they usually enable it just because they want the maximum "security", and are led to believe that this will help we with that

Isn’t that converting a block list to an allow list, which ends up with the same result?

I think a related, important question will be what is the default for apps compiled where the developer hasn't adjusted this knob?

There's no block list or allow list; the app itself can detect (on startup) if it's been sideloaded, and display an error if they way.

It's the app developer's decision if their app can be side loaded.

Doesn't change the possibility as such.

No one knows because the DMA doesn’t explicitly define what is/is not permissible.

It is largely up to the discretion of the EC.

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