young children don't know any better. hell many teens don't. older people get dementia and go senile. Not everyone is tech savvy.
And selfishly I don't want to have to continually be on guard with my phone and worry about "making mistakes". Don't go forcing your world view on a product i have selected in large part because of the restrictions it places on developers, especially when you have the larger android ecosystem giving you it.
The problem is the older, senile or tech illiterate folk who can be coached into disable the blocks and installing spyware. You don't like it buy an android its literally that easy to avoid if you want the freedom.
Enable the setting to block third-party app stores - something which will 100% guaranteed to be there - and be happy while the rest of us who want consumer choice can also be happy. Win-Win.
that doesn't help the tech illiterate or senile parents who can be coached into disabling it to install spyware. And right now you can just not buy an apple device and have your choice while the rest of us can continue buying apple for our parents: win-win.
You can already restrict apps with a unique passcode today. Will work for senile parents or children.
However, as a sane, functioning adult, I don't have my choice on the iOS platform - I cannot use native Firefox. I cannot make my apps without paying the Apple dev tax. I cannot distribute to my circle.
People are easy to manipulate at scale. The idea that people are rational agents who can make educated decisions as consumers is deeply flawed. Yes, people _can_ make educated decisions, but more often than not, they don't have the requisite knowledge to make an informed decision. Letting those consumers get scammed because they aren't technical enough isn't a good solution to complicated problems.
With the same logic, setting sane defaults and putting “dangerous” options behind enough GUI options will give you the best of both - no (statistically) people will be motivated enough to press n menus deep for a setting, while the few that want full access to a very expensive device they supposedly own get to use it to its max.
Letting people decide what permissions on their apps is the middle ground.
The extremes are letting Apple decide what you can and can't run on your phone, or letting apps decide what you can or can't run on your phone.
That some people are too ignorant to set phone permissions is their problem. We still sell sharp knives even though people cut themselves all the time. Demanding Apple protect us is the digital equivalent of banning anything sharper than a butter knife.
So many people in this thread seem to be arguing I should not be allowed to choose Apple’s model as it is today, “for my own good”. The article is about explicitly outlawing parts of their model.
How’s that for personal agency and not infantilising me?
No, for the common good. We are all harmed when Apple or Google can decide which businesses will succeed or fail, which apps get censored and which are allowed.
Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice?
Censorship is something governments do, not private companies selling an optional product.
If the greater good is a free for all app store, then let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product, not by outlawing the alternatives.
> Can us common people get to decide what the common good is, or is that exclusively your choice?
This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly.
> let the greater populace decide that by choosing that product
"The only legitimate power citizens have is that of consumers, not voters." - shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay?
> This legislation is the result of democratic process - i.e. decided by the "common people", if indirectly.
Do you know that for a fact? The EU is famously opaque to its voters. What is being done in the name of the voters is likely for the most part entirely unknown to said voters. Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products. Should we disregard their opinion in favour of the opinion of a few bureaucrats four levels removed from the common people?
> shall we also decide to only buy from companies that don't use child labor, and don't put toxic chemicals in food, and don't pollute, or are those areas something where legislation is legitimate, while reigning in anti-competitive practices for some reason is not okay?
Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies? Reminder that this subthread is about not infantilising people. I do believe people make such choices all the time, to avoid child labour and what not. What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?
> Ehr, yes? Shouldn’t we decide to avoid bad companies?
What I clearly meant was if that should be the only defense we have against such companies. Or should we also have things like food and work safety regulations, and anti-child-labor laws.
> What’s more democratic than a vast majority of people making such choices without coercion?
Consumerism is the ultimate democracy, voting for laws and representatives is tyranny...
> Very likely many more EU citizens have “voted” on this issue in a more direct fashion by buying Apple products.
Can you honestly tell what exactly they voted on? I voted for the good hardware and privacy-aligned actions, which did overcome their closed, proprietary-only software’s problems. By your logic, my vote should count towards the latter as a goal.
I can’t tell what the buyers of Apple products voted for exactly, but neither can you tell me what EU voters voted for when choosing their rep.
I mean here we have a law proposed by an unelected body (the European Commission), now being ratified by the European Parliament. The EP is elected (with ~50% turnout) but decides numerous issues (thousands? Tens of thousands?) in an election cycle. When voters elected their representatives how much thought did they spare to walled garden app stores?
Although both are indirect expressions of opinion, buying an Apple product seems to be a clearer endorsement for their model than voting in EU elections by a long shot.
Not sure if it is comparable. If the EU would ban Apple products than sure, but regulating the platform should not be only an Apple-issue. These private companies are so big that they have considerable impact on the public, so I think it is only fair that the public gets a say as well (in the form of indirect democracy, as we don’t have better).
> Censorship is something governments do, not private companies selling an optional product.
Since when? Private companies have exceedingly large powers and they are not chosen in a democratic manner by people at all. Apple could on a whim cut me off from most of my data or impersonate me, facebook feeds false information to whole countries, swaying public opinion.
At least most governments are more-or-less democratically elected.
