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Comment by rpdillon | Hacker News Reader

I've attempted to make this point to proponents of the walled gardens as a real benefit they are losing. There are app developers that just want to make useful stuff and share it. But Play (and the App Store) are completely designed around developers that are trying to make a living there (because that's how Google/Apple make money off the store). As such, the stores are quite hostile to community built software that changes rarely. This is a real loss, as I think that software is often the best available for a given purpose due to simplicity, privacy, and longevity.

So glad I have F-Droid!

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I've had some thoughts in a similar vein, but I was thinking from a privacy perspective. The Google and Apple arguments for the walled gardens basically boil down to "You can't trust other stores to protect your privacy and security", but the obvious counter-argument to that is that other stores may actually be able to focus more on privacy and security than the walled gardens do.

Apple and Google inevitably have limited privacy protections, because they'd probably run off Meta and a bunch of other really popular / in-demand apps and cut into their own bottom-line if they really cracked down. In contrast, a third party store may be more free to only host apps that are more privacy-oriented or have been security audited, etc.

Look, to be blunt about it I think what Apple did to Facebook was a necessary evil, they (Facebook) seemed to buy Whatsapp as purely a way to entrench their network effects, get access to phone numbers and contacts etc, and their data hoovering practices are so severe that they tried to pin their own certificate (or something like that, I'm hazy on the details)

I get the Apple skepticism, I'm not happy with some of what they do, I think it's contentious when app stores ban something like Parler, but fine-grained granularity is something we kind of desperately need

Let's not forget this data hoovering, where they set up some bullshit local http server on Android that lets them track you even in private mode

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169115#44170000

Arguments in this day and age are soldiers[1], at least when they come from powerful people: (if you're a corporation or a government) they are things you send to fight for you. You don't have to actually believe them, and the most effective ones are often not ones that are true.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/w/arguments-as-soldiers

Interesting how Web API’s and mobile have gone in different directions. If a web browser breaks compatibility too much then it’s a broken browser.

Compatibility is broken constantly on the web, but it is forward compatibility. This is why most browsers now auto-update to newer versions. Websites then require new features which will result in older browsers being non-functional.

Backward incompatible changes happen - they are more difficult due to lack of communication with/pressure on the sites they will break, and coordination of strategy with other browser vendors. This can actually be quite frustrating, as each browser has their own 1-3 month cadence for new releases and it is difficult to track whether a breaking change is going to land on any given browser soon enough to coordinate a new version of a site.

True, complicated websites need to be tested. But if a web site serves simple web pages then it generally doesn’t have a maintenance burden. (Though, link rot happens to everyone.)

For all practical purposes it works as long as it is Chrome, that is how modern Web development has become.

As a counter point - I just downloaded Canabalt from Apple Store, that wasn't updated in 7 years and it works just fine. The oldest app I found (that still had App page) are 10 years old without updates and I see many released in 2011 that I can download but doesn't have app page anymore.

My point is that one cannot make an argument over bad implementation. E.g. Sony is known for pulling down games or even stores for older devices whereas Steam allow people to download games bought decades ago.

> My point is that one cannot make an argument over bad implementation.

You can when it's the only implementation that's allowed.

Great point, and also: the walled garden operators don't make any money off of free apps, so they don't prioritize supporting creators of free apps. The result is that it becomes unsustainable for most developers to keep a free app on the store.

The incentive structure of walled garden app stores encourages the proliferation of paid apps for everything, including things like an instrument tuner or a notepad app that'd be free in a non-walled garden environment.

It's hard for even developers and small companies TRYING to make a living there. Keeping an app active in the app stores requires a lot of extra overhead, but doesn't add significant value to the product in cases where it's a native cross-platform or browser-based app.

So many of the apps installed on my phone could be PWAs, but since the implementation of PWAs is quite limited - a native app is required in most cases.

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