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> It’ll also long-term enable more dark patterns. Oh you signed up for this $14.99/month app? Well gotta call if you want to unsubscribe. Hell maybe even have to send a letter!

The same EU legislation explicitly bans this.

> Any third-party App Store that’s not a complete scam will be forced to comply with any exact rules that Apple has to. There’s no difference.

This is a misrepresentation. China's worst fear is the lack of choke points for application distribution. Once peer to peer distribution of applications happens without central distributors then their ability to lock down protests will take a significant hit.

> The same EU legislation explicitly bans this.

Companies will find work-arounds as they always do.

> This is a misrepresentation.

It's an opinion, not a misrepresentation. I'm not misrepresenting anything.

> China's worst fear is the lack of choke points for application distribution. Once peer to peer distribution of applications happens without central distributors then their ability to lock down protests will take a significant hit.

Practically speaking though, who will create app stores that will be "safe", and functional? Most people will use a few major app stores (maybe as many as 6, as few as 2) because they are positive feedback loops. Any major company operating one of these will have enough exposure to China that they'll comply with local laws, as they do now. If a company doesn't have exposure that the CCP can leverage, they'll just ban the app store from ever entering the market. Unless of course you think that we'll wind up with hundreds of app stores, like "Bob's Great Apps", but then you have a much worse problem which is the entire ecosystem has turned into a pile of dogshit. Maybe globally there could be 50-100 app stores, but they'll be localized.

If what you're saying is true, that China wants choke points, then why is the Great Firewall so successful? Wouldn't the distributed Internet, and VPNs, and other web-based peer-to-peer applications win out?

Yep, much of this experiment already happened: Android, Windows, etc. If it is so easy / steady-state to have both experiences simultaneously on one platform, why didn't it happen on either of those two? It will absolutely devolve into the lowest denominator.

And that's why I choose not to be on Android.

Yes it will once it happens on iOS. Large companies like Facebook (not picking on Meta, just an easy example) really don’t want to follow Apple’s privacy guidelines, don’t want to ask users for permission to track their location, and don’t want to tell users what info they gather and how it’s used.

Note though that in the EU they have to ask for permission to track their location and tell users what info they gather, thanks to the GDPR.

Sure but they’ll just outrun regulation and find ways around it. This is even a problem with the App Store now when it comes to technologically sophisticated companies, but there’s a balance because if they’re too aggressive Apple will give them the boot. Once XYZ Tech Company has its own App Store it’ll be able to hide more nefarious activity, create legal fictions to avoid responsibility, and hide how it circumvents GDPR. Using the third-party store might require consenting to location tracking even. So users who want to use XYZ app will agree to a bunch of terms and conditions before being able to even use the app, and then it’ll just be open season.

I do not trust GDPR to handle this effectively. It’ll be like a lion trying to squash ants, and now there’s no single company that the EU can go to and say “fix this”. Apple will say “not my problem”.