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by simion314 1588 days ago
>when do I accept that the writing is on the wall..

The giants will not stop if the bad behavior still makes profit, Apple will add one more exception for the narrow case in each country they lose, and when they lose again will add a new super narrow exception.

This will continue until US force them to allow real choice for the users and be transparent about things(force them to replace "Buy" with "Rent", allow users to be informed about better alternatives, allow users to disable censorship )

2 comments

Apple will add one more exception for the narrow case in each country they lose, and when they lose again will add a new super narrow exception.

That is most likely not going to work for a long time, EU-wide legislation is being prepared that will (among other things) most likely open the door for alternative app stores:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...

As an iOS user, I don't think this would be a great outcome. But Apple called this upon them by charging an insane 30% (15% in some cases) and limiting alternative payment methods, etc.

Replacing "Buy" with "Rent" is something you will never convince non-tech people to care about. That ship sailed when EULAs were deemed legal. Pushing it will just confuse people and I'd argue muddy the waters for the truly important things.
People can learn, you will need to make public stories like

"Person X "bought" music/books from store X in value of 10K and now he can't access it because some bullshit EULA"

"person Y "bought" 1 year subscription but was banned for 6 months by an algorithm, no right to appeal and no refunds" <- something similar happened to me

Person Z bought a device but after 1 month an update crippled it, W bought a device and the platform owner crippled the included browser and made it impossible to install a usable alternative.

PlayStation 3 had OtherOS allowing Linux installation, then removed it with an update, settled years later for a paltry $55 for anyone who could prove they used the function and $9 for anyone who claimed to have purchased it based on the functionality or couldn't prove they used it.
They still aren't legal in many European countries.