[Spivak]

This is why I think it's so misguided when people talk about and push for "alternative payment processors" or "alternative app stores" when what they really mean is "I don't want to pay 30%" and just hope it comes for free with the former.

Okay cool you can have alternative app stores, you still need a business relationship with Apple, have to submit your apps for review to get your app signed, and turn over I guess 27% of all digital goods sold. But you can have your own storefront and downloader. Congrats.

[smoldesu]

Which really goes to demonstrate how ridiculous this is.

The iPhone is a coin-operated software runtime. You pay for it at the register and buy the right to own the phone, but your ownership of the software is constantly jeopardized. Everything you use for free you take for granted, and everything you pay for is rent-extracted by the world's largest company.

It's a harmful business. You can argue there are benefits, but the surcharge for simply using the Apple runtime is asinine. It should be loathed and shunned from the highest court, rendered unconscionable for any company of any size. Apple and Google can charge a 90% tax on their app stores for all I care. Those stores simply need competition to compel non-harmful practice. Otherwise, they're completely unaccountable. They've already proven this with their non-cooperation in the browser industry.

[lotsofpulp]

> It's a harmful business.

All I know is iOS/iPadOS have made it possible for my parents and all the non native English literate, mostly uneducated elders in my family able to use modern computing devices without me ever having to worry about malware.

And there is no alternative.

[cubefox]

Some Apple fans here seem to assume that Android, Windows, and MacOS must be full of malware, since they allow side-loading.

[lotsofpulp]

I have many years of experience dealing with malware on Windows machines, and Android from my dad’s usage of OnePlus phones.

MacOS can also have malware because uneducated non English literate people have no idea what they are clicking.

iPadOS and iOS’s saving grace is that it does not matter what someone clicks, everything is easily uninstallable and walled off.

[cubefox]

I think it uncontroversial that this experience is so rare that it doesn't justify forbidding sideloading on Android, Windows, and MacOS. Then it also doesn't justify it for iOS.

[lotsofpulp]

If it was so rare, then there would have been no need for the plethora of software made to get rid of malware like CCleaner and malwarebytes and ninite.com and so many others.

[etchalon]

I don't assume it so much as I experience it.

[smoldesu]

The alternative is a developer mode switch with a big "Don't Touch This, Grandma!" modal when you press it. People who want to install their own software do not conflict with your parents or the non-native English literate uneducated elders in your family.

[MBCook]

And what’s the first thing every scam will now tell people to do?

Turn dev mode on so they can install the “malware remover” or “fix the Facebook app” or whatever to be able to execute the scam.

[jeppester]

Child protection modes have had this problem solved since forever.

It's only a hard problem to solve if you are looking for excuses not to solve it.