[scoofy]

>Somehow we managed to survive without the majority of society being scammed out of their life savings before Apple came in with the iPhone and locked down iOS

What on earth are you talking about? People have been getting scammed since the days of AOL! What an insane perspective. It's not about total money lost from scams. It's about the amount of impact it has on the individuals who get scammed. What's the problem with Russian roulette after all? Most people playing Russian Roulette are absolutely fine! The point is that the damage done to the few people who get scammed is so high, we ought to care about their lives too. At the end of the day, it might end up being us... it probably won't, but it might.

Yes, monopolistic network effects are a problem, but that can be handled with regulation.

[TeMPOraL]

We don't save few people suffering high damage from losing a round of Russian Roulette by restricting ability to roll D6, because of then harm a bad roll can do when in form of a barrel of a loaded revolver. Also "only criminals need random number generators".

Yes that's how we're treating end user computing.

[scoofy]

It is a question of who is "We" because all this seems to imply that the market owes "us" this product.

I would lose my mind and switch to Linux for good if Apple every tried to close their laptops. Why? Because unlike my mom, I'm sitting here writing programs for myself.

On my phone however, I don't want to have to do a bunch of research whenever I need to install something like a parking app. I don't want to have to install a random parking app, but when you need an app to park in the MUELLER - MCBEE garage in Austin, and when I'm visiting and am meeting people for tacos, life is going to force me to install that app. When that happens, I'm happy to be in the walled garden. In fact, I want a walled garden.

I'm happy to have two computers, one open and one closed. They're two different products. For folks who want an open phone, yea, it's basically GrapheneOS or nothing, because when the point of the phone is a completely different use case (random app installs) then the point becomes the ecosystem, and you need to always be able to trust the ecosystem.

When you are trying to tinker with your phone, it becomes a completely different product. The market doesn't owe you that product.