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Comment by gcb0 | Hacker News Reader

> The Apple store seems good for small apps

that is fine if you ever show up as featured. Which is 1% of the apps, and even then, from already big companies after they spent the marketing money. Other than that, for distribution (really?) and payment, there are tons of alternatives/competition the small apps cannot even consider.

App store is nothing other than a racketeering scheme where you have to pay if you can't "protect" yourself against. It is "robber barons"/"ma-bell"/etc all over again.

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In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. After you pay for manufacturing and distribution (shipping shrink-wrapped boxes of CD-ROMs, multilingual manuals and a unique serial number to retailers in Alaska and Singapore is definitely not free) a developer would be lucky to end up with one third of the retail price in their pocket.

The Apple app store is actually a huge improvement over that model; it just seems unfair because digital sales shouldn't cost much, right? Right??

Well, Apple created the marketplace. They spend a lot of money making that marketplace work correctly, keeping their software platforms and merchant facilities robust for customers and developers, and putting that marketplace in the hands of hundreds of millions of people. They built this opportunity for devlopers and every developer who has built an app did so knowing exactly what the terms were.

If you don't like it, don't complain after you voluntarily and knowingly agreed to the terms.

> In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%.

In the past, you bought hardware that could run software from more than one retailer.

You still can, if that is you want.

You are free to make that choice.

Meanwhile, I'd appreciate if you didn't object to my right to choose a managed ecosystem if that is what I prefer. I like the Apple ecosystem the way it is, thank you very much.

> You are free to make that choice.

i do not believe that apple allows you to sideload apps without jailbreaking (which voids warranty iirc). Therefore, the user is not free to make that choice.

Let me be clearer.

You are free to make that choice [of running software from more than one retailer] by choosing a different computing platform. Hundreds of models of Android phone are available at every price point, from super-budget to super-premium.

It's important to me that I can choose a platform that has a strongly walled ecosystem because I greatly prefer the advantages of it more than I dislike the disadvantages. That's my opinion and I am happy that a product exists that satisfies my needs. If you don't like Apple's ecosystem, don't buy their products.

Asking for an Apple device that uses the Android/AOSP business model is like insisting that Jeep builds a Wrangler with a Tesla drivetrain. If that's really what you want and you're willing to put the effort in, you can make it yourself. It's entirely possible.

Sorry but your Argument falls flat....you cannot use android as an option to defend Apple. If apple fails to meet the needs for the user you cannot defend them and say 'but you can choose android' that is not freedom. Freedom within Apple would mean the ability to easily host and run applications as desired. They do not have alveen caught trying to suppress users freedom. Aka jailbreaking and their fight make it illegal

His entire point is that Apple does in fact meet his needs as a user. It meets those needs precisely because of the choices they have made. This may mean that Apple doesn't meet your needs as a user. However, asking Apple to be all things to all users is an impossible requirement.

The market has your back though, because Android gives you a very different experience from Apple.

Exactly right, thank you.

If Jeep started suing people for modifying their Jeep with a Tesla Drivetrain, I would object to that as well.

Or even if Jeep started adding specific "features" that attempted to make it difficult for people to modify their car.

Apple used to literally sue people for this stuff. That's immoral. And the courts shutdown those frivolous lawsuits from Apple.

It is perfectly reasonable for people to modify products that they own. If you don't like then, then feel free to not modify your product. You own it, and all.

You can buy an Android.

Not sure what you are talking about here.

You could never buy software for your phone from more than one retailer. Or are you trying to force the desktop computing model onto Apple ?

> Apple created the marketplace

It used to be that the maker of the OS spent tremendous efforts to attract developers. They did this for free to gain app market share.

So, your argument falls flat. Apple is doing this to generate profit. They continue doing so because of their dominant iOS market share and that for apps there is no alternative.

Please stop making excuses for trillion dollar companies.

> Apple is doing this to generate profit.

Yes, that's what companies do. If you don't like capitalism, your beef isn't with Apple, it's with your government.

The app store didn't replace offline retail, the internet did. Software was sold online before the app store came along just fine. With app-stores we are back in retailer country: convenient as a customer but the manufacturer has to pay a fee to be boxed and put on the digital shelf.

And there is only one shelf! This is way worst than retailer country.

As a data point, which I don't think is a huge outlier: I have paid $5 for lots of apps I like, which I would never ever have gotten around to paying for on someone's website -- partly trust, partly just mental overhead. But whether the app is $4 or $6 makes zero difference to me.

I don't think I found any of these through their listings or search, maybe those could be better? But the space is huge, maybe random blogs etc. can do better than any centralised store.

But even if you DON'T show up as featured, maybe you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store. I think that's what's being discussed here.

> you're one of the 10 vetted apps that do what yours does, instead of 1 out of 100 on the Play Store.

1. Citation needed (because looks like you are pulling these numbers out of your ass).

2. And by your argument, looks like people have more choices on Android. Who would have thought?!

Please don't be a jerk on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines so often that I've banned your account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

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