[TheDong]

Consoles are trivially avoidable. Family group chats that require a blue-bubble-capable phone, grandmothers that only know how to use facetime, those are actually important.

I can't get into my coworking space without a door unlock app on my phone.

On the other hand, exactly 0 times in my life have I ever been told "yeah, you need to own an xbox to go to the dentist's office".

Phones are indeed in a different class from game consoles and should be held to a higher standard.

But yes, also, game consoles should allow you to develop your own programs and side-load them.

[mullingitover]

> I can't get into my coworking space without a door unlock app on my phone.

And that app is probably free, covered by the costs of the paid apps, the majority of which are brainrot games and social media[1].

Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity.

[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/29389/global-app-revenue-by-s...

[TheDong]

The app is free for users, but the coworking space pays the app's company a considerable fee to manage access to the doors and audit logs and such, so it's not that it's subsidized by brainrot games.

Free apps on iOS should be subsidized by, I don't know, the purchase price of the phone and the $100 yearly developer fee I'd think.

> Honestly this system isn't half bad, it's essentially a tax on idleness that funds a bunch of virtuous activity.

The system isn't funding "virtuous activity", the system is a for-profit system for the benefit of the richest company on the planet.

[mullingitover]

> the coworking space pays the app's company a considerable fee to manage access to the doors and audit logs and such, so it's not that it's subsidized by brainrot games.

I think you're well aware that these fees don't go toward the iOS SDK licensing/infra/staffing/security/distribution costs of the app and the App Store. That's what is being subsidized by the brainrot games.

Furthermore, there's nothing stopping that app maker from bypassing the app store and simply making a webapp, so this argument that you need an iphone to open the door is really moot. It's not the smartphone makers' fault that the door company's customers demand this product.

[TheDong]

> Furthermore, there's nothing stopping that app maker from bypassing the app store and simply making a webapp, so this argument that you need an iphone to open the door is really moot

The door opener uses NFC, and iOS does not allow webapps to use NFC, only app-store apps: https://caniuse.com/webnfc

Apple has consistently made the experience of using webapps worse, including making installing them so convoluted that most users continue to not even know they exist.

[sodality2]

> Family group chats that require a blue-bubble-capable phone

This is a social walled garden they've built over years and has been solidified by users choosing it over and over again. Are they exploiting our brain's capacities regarding social pressure to extract profit? Sure, but so does every fast food company, social media company, marketing company, etc.

I think it's interesting that you phrase it as "require" regarding a group chat made by your family members. Apple doesn't require this, your family members chose Apple when they purchased their phones.

[TheDong]

Practically every other chat ecosystem I've used has worked fine from android or ios, or for the most part my desktop computer. Signal, XMPP, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Twitter DMs, Google Chat, all of these work _fine_ from every general computing device I own (iPhone, android, linux).

Somehow it's only iMessage which doesn't have an android or desktop or web app, despite Apple having more money than every other messenger app I mentioned.

> your family members chose Apple when they purchased their phones.

Apple chooses the default and integrates it into the OS more deeply than any third-party app can be integrated. It's not a free choice... and then Apple also refuses to provide open access to this ecosystem to other devices.

I know other people have sometimes said that it's an anti-spam measure to tie the iMessage account to an apple ID which is associated with a purchase. I'd be fine making an apple ID and paying up to $300 to get iMessage access for it if that would allow me to not use iOS and still communicate with my family (via an officially supported / recognized android + linux iMessage app).

When my iPhone finally breaks (and may it be soon), I am planning to get a mac mini server and install https://bluebubbles.app/ to solve this.

I am mildly worried that apple will eventually ban me for that, as they did with beeper (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39156308), and also not thrilled about the increased electric bill that'd entail.

[sodality2]

> Apple chooses the default and integrates it into the OS more deeply than any third-party app can be integrated

And this is well known by everyone, and your family still chose Apple (in fact, I'm fairly certain this is why most people choose Apple - they want everything to "just work"). Apple has no obligation to provide any "ecosystem".

At the end of the day there isn't some mass hypnosis at work here. People choose Apple en masse because it works for them. Nothing stops Apple users from making an SMS (now RCS) group chat, either, nor from you and your family hosting a group chat on any other app on the App Store.