Comment by Denzel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Denzel | Hacker News Reader

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> people should be able to install anything they want without some unwanted middleman

What “people” are you referring to? The millions of people, like yours truly, who’ve made the conscious decision to pay Apple because of their App Store model.

I’m an engineer, I have a desktop and a laptop I can install whatever I want on. I’m ok with not doing that on my phone. In fact, I don’t want that experience on my phone.

So, I don’t understand when others speak for “people” like me who’ve voiced their opinion via purchase. There’s a long list of moments where I’ve been over-the-moon, downright happy with Apple’s payment and subscription experience. It’s been a breath of fresh air vs. dealing with independent providers where, oh, I have to cancel by calling your customer support center? Oh, no, you need me to send an email instead? With a photo of my ID? Oh, you accidentally continued charging me because the subscription wasn’t canceled? That’s ok, but why did you double the price of the subscription without so much as an email notifying me? Oh, you sent an email titled “Thanks for being a customer” and buried it in the addendum, gotcha. Yeah, I’m ok, I’ll stick with Apple’s payments and subscriptions system on my phone.

Those are all real experiences, by the way, that I’m happy to say I haven’t had with Apple for the past decade.

Some people went with Apple in spite of their closed App Store model. They might have well not wanted it, but other advantages of iPhones won out for reasons that will remain their own.

As a reminder, Android requires manually ticking a checkbox before allowing sideloading. Sideloading is a choice, not a requirement. If you don't want to do it, don't enable it.

Yeah everything super easy when you control the entire process, from what apps you will see, to how you purchase them. There is no conscious decision to chose to pay with apple. You either purchase an apps subscription through apples payment gateway or not.

Alternative solution are convoluted because Apple makes it that way, it's by design. You are paying more than you need to, and developers get less then they should.

People complain about 1% surcharge on a visa, which is made clear before each purchase. Apple takes 30% and they hide the fact from consumers. But it's all so smooth, you hardly notice you're spending money it's so convenient. Is that so surprising when the company controlling the OS also controls how you pay for products they didnt make?

Apple controls the entire process except the minds of those that buy the iPhone and the bank accounts the money comes from.

> People complain about 1% surcharge on a visa, which is made clear before each purchase.

This is utterly false. I've never seen a physical nor online POI specifically say "price includes x% fee paid to credit card processor". I imagine Visa and MC explicitly forbid you from making it a line-item as well.

Sorry it is utterly true. Have you ever bought a plane ticket? It’s there in BOLD at checkout. ‘Credit card purchase surcharge of x amount.’ Amazon have recently made a huge deal about Visa’s 1% markup and emailed millions of customer telling them they should consider alternate payment options.

As for iPhone user’s. It’s obvious to all that Apples resources allow them to create the best devices on the market with the biggest library of apps that people want. Their monopoly on the market is not some green light to exploit customers and developers.

That is your experience that I would not challenge. Mine is completely different for a very simple reason: except Netflix I completely ignore products that do not offer perpetual license no matter what. And finding decent products I need on generic web in my opinion is way better then doing the same thing on app stores. There are exceptions of course like off-line GPS software.

This can be easily resolved by forcing developers who provide their own method of payment to also include the App Store's default in-app purchases. That's how it currently works with Sign in with Apple.

I'm not going to pretend there's a choice on mobile because there's not, both Apple & Google are acting as they are part of the same company and with similar rules. it's just a duopoly without competition, I don't buy the illusion of competition.

Going into the debate of Apple vs Google is already missing the point, both are part of the same mobile conglomerate.

> I’m an engineer, I have a desktop and a laptop I can install whatever I want on. I’m ok with not doing that on my phone. In fact, I don’t want that experience on my phone.

I want that, phones are just computers like any others and having two companies control the worldwide app market without any competition is terrible. It's not just me who want that, it's that society and the global economy needs that.

If there’s an unserved market need: you want it, society and the global economy needs it; then go compete in the market, create your own competitive alternative. No one is preventing you from doing that. The market will dictate how right you are.

he said "should be able to" not "must exclusively". Maybe you enjoy the limited offerings in the official store but that doesn't justify preventing the People (including you) from installing without the store.

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