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Comment by yawz | Hacker News Reader

This God-like behaviour makes me cringe. This type of bans and restrictions exist as a result of poorly managed and/or poorly designed system. Ideally any moderation should be part of the ecosystem and the decision making should belong to the users. If they want more flappy things who are you to say "No! You can't!"?

Edited to add: Their control should be exercised over precise things like "user interface guidelines" or "use of private vs public APIs", not the type of app or the name of the app. The app stores contain gazillions of ToDo apps. Just because there a few successful ones should we say "No" to ToDo apps?

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You may want to re-evaluate your definition of 'god complex'. They're trying to stop a million 'Flappy*' apps from flooding the market. Maybe the ecosystem should stop trying to profit from someone else's work.

> They're trying to stop a million 'Flappy' apps from flooding the market.*

So what? If you don't like them, don't play. Most of them will never get to 50 downloads anyway. This is natural selection.

> Maybe the ecosystem should stop trying to profit from someone else's work.

Are you sure Flappy Bird was the first of its kind?!?!?

I never said I don't like them, do not put words in other peoples mouths, it's not nice. I am trying to explain the behavior of a process you don't seem to be privy to. Don't get so worked up over something that ultimately doesn't matter.

I'm sorry. I should've been clearer: If one doesn't like them then one doesn't have to play. "You" was not directed to your person. ;)

Apple and Google shouldn't want a bunch of crap that won't get fifty downloads on their stores.

I wonder how Google's search engine deals with all the crap sites that get less than fifty page views a year...

Probably prioritises them very low, so they do not rock up in a lot of searches. Maybe puts them on the old server in the corner of the room.

There is a website that lets you search minus the million most popular websites, and it is very different.

Not a good analogy. Google isn't tacitly endorsing those websites. It is endorsing things in its store, at least to the level of "we think it's worth taking the vig for this".

Maybe the ecosystem should stop trying to profit from someone else's work.

All of us profit from other people's work, and we all deal in derivatives, including Flappy Bird zero.

The article specifically mentions Flappy copies that have malicious intent. Perhaps as a user, you don't mind thousands of people accidentally downloading an app and having their personal information stolen or their phones hacked before user moderation catches up with them, but I would suspect that if you were in Apple or Google's shoes, and the app ecosystem were a vital component of your business, you would.

Malicious apps? Fair enough. This is not news, though. I'm pretty sure most of those apps are not malicious. They're just very similar to Flappy Bird.

It's just simply a pity that the market isn't as free as we'd like it to be... But we've known that since day one.

Please tell us what management or design improvements would solve this problem.

Better recommendation or sorting systems. Instead of removing flappy bird games entirely, just put them at the bottom of the search results. Ideally this could be done by machine learning or community ratings, rather than a Google employee deciding they don't like flappy bird games and down ranking them. But even the second option is better than refusing them entirely.

Remove stuff that is actually malicious or breaks rules, not games that aren't original (keep in mind the original flappy bird was incredibly unoriginal itself.)

This is IMO a cop out. The nature of the App Store is such that anything ranked low is never downloaded. A moderation system that drops the ranking of an app is functionally the same as not allowing it in the first place.

The only difference is that rank-dropping lets us pat ourselves on the back for how fair and open we're being when in fact we haven't really made a difference.

That is not the only difference. A down-ranked app may not get any organic downloads from people searching/browsing the App Store. But if a developer is doing their own marketing to direct people straight to the download page in the App Store, then there is a huge difference between "not available" and "hidden at the bottom"

The rank dropping is fair. They should rank shit content lower and not recommend it.

How about ditch the management aspect and go with the open internet? Let everyone decide when and where they get their software. You know, let the people who own their computers actually control what's on them!

I detest the walled garden, but we know from experience that most regular people that own their "own" computers rarely control what's on them.

For them it's either control by Apple/Google/etc or "hackers".

Can we put some blame on Windows for that? It's not just that they can download software from wherever, it's that the software can do whatever it wants when it's on the computer, without the knowledge or consent of the user.

The best you get is a generic warning with some variation of "do you 100% trust this program to do whatever it wants?" which is unrealistic even for the most competent users.

I find it distressing. The knowledge of how to control, secure and modify my computer is so essential that I'd feel illiterate without it.

Either you own your technology or your technology owns you.

But I think that knowledge of securing your computer develops over time as you perhaps make mistakes along the way or threats evolve. Security isn't like an on-off switch. The issue that arises from app stores letting loose and letting people fend for themselves (particularly for an "overlord" like Apple or Google) is that it does nothing to address things like viruses or malware that proliferate due to a large enough population of people who lack that security experience. This ultimately affects the ecosystem as a whole and even those who are particularly cautious. It's like how religiously washing your hands is only going to get you so far in terms of avoiding getting sick when you are surrounded by people who are already sick. Especially now a days where access to personal information can have many entry points due to social networking (e.g. Facebook posts/pictures), unless you limit yourself to a sterile bubble, what effects the ecosystem will ultimately affect you.

That option is available already.

Now, this is the question, isn't it? I don't have a solution for it. Not yet, at least :). But in doubt, I would trust a community rather than a controlling entity.

I personally would like, and would pay a premium for, a redacted/curated app store experience that would hide all apps that were:

-Shamelessly derivative garbage (flappy birds)

-Manipulative Free-To-Play garbage (candy crush saga)

-Immature garbage (fart apps)

-Misleading Parasitic garbage (e.g. Microsoft Word "Tutorials")

I've come to terms with the fact that Apple and Google can't really keep garbage out of the app store, but I would really love an alternative app store that was garbage free.

But I think there lies the problem. If you leave it to "someone" or to "some entity" then you get a one-sided impartial judgement of what constitutes "good".

Your list is full of big hits. This means that the market responds positively to that. I know people who hates Facebook and would never use any form of Social Media. I respect their view but it doesn't make them "right" as far as the big picture is concerned.

If there's a choice between "someones" and "some entities" and I can find a set curated by critics whose tastes align with mine, that's great.

Right now, the app store is essentially a discount retailer: you can trust that the things sold there range from excellent to "probably not criminal". Sometimes I just want to to go Nordstrom, pay a little extra, and browse through a small selection of things that I can trust aren't total garbage.

I think most (if not all) people would agree with that sentiment. That's why I humbly think that Apple should concentrate in improving their search and maybe implementing better profiling or a better review system. Just because App Store is a mess doesn't make casual, arbitrary and impromptu policing right.

That's my thought exactly, if there were different "stores" to choose from, then they wouldn't have to make this kind of casual arbitrary impromptu policing. The current middle ground is bad for everybody.

One of two things will eventually happen:

-Apple's reputation for 'good taste' will push them to make their store do just that

-Google's openness will allow one (or more) companies to make parallel stores that do just that.

Apple has great taste, but thta doesn't equate with "my taste". More people having a go at it on the Android side makes it more likely I'll find one that works for me.

Google forbids parallel stores.

Define "parallel store"

Do they forbid someone making a curated collection when every URL points to the location of the app in the Play Store?

I would also pay for this service.

That's what we had before and is why curated app stores were never able to gain a foothold. Oh... wait.

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