You may be a bit young to remember this but it was once possible to install any software on hardware you owned without permission from the manufacturer.
And that’s how the common person ends up with devices riddled with viruses, malware, and spyware. I don’t disagree with you, but the walled garden approach is certainly a safer option for the vast majority of end users.
Presumably, app stores that do filter out apps with viruses, malware and spyware would still exist. But you'd have a choice in which app store you use, much like how if you're running Windows on a desktop you are able to install other search engines on the computer, and not fear them being suddenly removed for not being Internet Explorer
Presumably, there existed "app stores" or curated lists before that filtered out apps with viruses, malware, and spyware. Unless people strictly stuck to those curated lists (see: walled gardens), they'd be just as at risk for that malware that existed elsewhere.
How's that different from a suggestion to open up more ways to install software that doesn't have that no-virus/malware/spyware filtering? Is the onus just back on the user to determine which app stores are "safe"?
At some level, yeah the onus is on the user to determine which stores are safe.
Still going with the browser analogy, you can install Firefox on your desktop, or you can install BobsBrowser v0.17. Obviously BobsBrowser won't have the security or support that Firefox would, but that's why Firefox has a reputation.
The walled garden approach is like if Microsoft forced all users to only have Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer was unable to access websites that had not been approved by Internet Explorer (websites that would need to pay Microsoft substantial fees just to exist).
Pick your poison I suppose. I'd rather have control and have to pay for antivirus software, but I can see how many non-tech folks would like to offload this to a walled garden.
Centralized planning can end up in disaster though if the wrong decisions are made.
Everyone keeps bringing up this legendary "app store featuring safe curated content" keeping the "ordinary user" safe but the reality is both Google & Apple's stores are riddled with deceptive apps, scam subscriptions and spyware!
The real story with iOS (and to a lesser extent Android) security has been the switch to restricting the damage any particular app can do through process and resource isolation.
So first, having a multi user system was a good idea, running as a non privileged user is a good idea, and installing software through repos is a good idea. Linux isn't immune, it's just attacked differently and doesn't have the kind of surface area that would make attacks worth the effort. (not that there aren't thousands of linux boxes out there that are borked, they just aren't making the browser slow so people don't complain about it in the same way.
What would work really nicely here, is if apple had the app store as well as repo packages. So installing fdroid-for-iPhone from the play store shows all fdroid apps next time I look for apps. like adding a ppr to a deb box.
I don't know if they could still get leaned on to remove the access to that in the same way, but I would venture to guess that a secondary market for repos could be built in a way that is mildly vetted and also not tied to shareholder interests.
but the type of user who uses Linux was not the same type of user who were most vulnerable to getting viruses back before walled gardens. linux users would be less prone to malware regardless of whether there's a walled garden because they are more likely to have the tech literacy.
not entirely, more a function of it's multi user mode as default and repos. Those two things would have gone a long ways for early windows as well.
It's also worth noting that there are a lot of linux servers in the wild that are hacked serving shitty wordpress malware and spam email servers. Sure the desktop is fine, it's a very small piece of the pie, but the overall linux install ends up running bad software and poor configurations just like any OS.