Keep in mind one of these third parties would almost certainly be Meta (because users want their stuff), and that would almost certainly be a privacy downgrade.
Always fun to interact with some internet Thomas Jefferson giving freedom speeches from his mother's basement.
Reality is that people pay a lot of money because they 'trust' Apple (and to a lesser extent Google), but Meta is the sleaziest one of them all. (And I don't use their shit either.) But people want Whatapp and Instagram, and so you are telling them now they have sell-out and go to the "Meta App Store" to talk to their friends. That fucking sucks. And I think you agree with that.
Under such topics there are always comments about each vendor making their own store, yet it didn't happen on Android, where it's currently perfectly possible.
Sorry, I haven't had an Android phone since the original Nexus, so hopefully you can clarify. Could you install some hypothetical 'Meta Store' from the Google Store? Or do you mean more like Meta could just sell their own phone (eg Amazon)?
You can have alternative app stores on Android without any restrictions — the most famous example would be F-Droid which hosts free software. Nothing stops Epic, Meta or any company from also having such a store.
When you ship a certified Android, it has to come pre-installed with the Google Play Store but some vendors like Amazon and Huawei ship an alternative OS with their own stores to replace the Google one. It's not officially Android but can be based on the Android Open Source Project.
Very few companies have chosen to do either and it was usually because they were forced to (Huawei).
And yet you're apparently not losing your mind over Mark Zuckerberg having his products on the web? He's doing everything you claim on the open web - third party trackers embedded on other websites, etc. Do you want to lock down the web?
I think you have a reason for defending Apple. Maybe you love the company, maybe you've got their stock, maybe you've worked for them.
Apple is a trillion dollar behemoth that has distorted the market and removed freedom and choice. They're a menace that needs to be regulated. Period.
I also think Zuckerberg's tracking needs to be regulated, but that's a battle for another day. It's one we haven't so egregiously lost yet.
People don't need Meta. People need smartphones. And smartphones are draconian dictatorships that the government has been too asleep and too lax to regulate.
Guilty as charged. My parents had a Windows laptop and all sorts of evil shit was "sideloaded", and when I started reformatting it, some indian 'microsoft tech support' guy was actually screaming at them through the speakers. This is what happens in your world.
I bought them an iPad (and another) and it's now been almost 15 years with zero tech support calls, zero problems, zero scammers. That is fucking great for me. Money well spent. So yeah, I wish you guys could just buy a free software phone with no ABI and go away to recompile your software. But it is fucking terrible idea on a societal level.
We keep mocking and laughing at the "internet Thomas Jefferson"s of the world but they seem to be getting increasingly prescient about the dystopian world where we are giving bad actors disproportionate control over our lives on the pretext of keeping us or children safer.
I will agree with your point, and will also say a lot of the "bad actors" are actually in the house here. So don't take anything on face value. Hacker news has some straight computer criminals, adware types, cryptobros, dubious startup types, whoever is vibe-coding these crawlers, and etc. So of course they all believe in "maximum freedom" (to scam people).
Their R&D budget is at the expense of a free market that would have delivered the same or better products.
Did you ever see how wild and innovative the Japanese mobile phones were before iPhone monoculture took over?
I want crazy stuff like a smartphone that has the form factor of a Raspberry Pi. Or a smartphone with e-Ink. Crazy new categories of devices.
Sadly, the Apple/Google monopoly has turned smartphones into one of the shittiest, most locked down device categories. It's a death place for innovation.
Nobody is forcing you to buy their products, so they haven’t taken away anything from you.
If you do decide to buy their products, nothing has changed since the day of your purchase, so they haven’t taken away anything from you.
Their “monoculture” didn’t “take hold” - it beat the Japanese offerings through innovation and a better product.
They operate in a free market, their R&D budget is made possible by their market success. If things change in the market (e.g. AI) the market will vote the way it always does.
The market has forced us all to buy Apple or Google. There is not a vibrant field of alternatives, and there is certainly a desert of hobbyist tech.
The market is now so depressed that everyone has to jump through these companies' hoops to participate in the most important computing form factor in the world.
Don't apologize for trillion dollar hyperscalers. They don't need your love, adoration, or apology. They do not care about you at all.
Too much power has accrued to these two and it's being leveraged against all of society and the open market. Competition is supposed to be difficult, ruthless, challenging, and frenetic. I see two companies resting on their laurels that are happy to tax us into the next century while we wear their little straightjackets.
They operate in the illegal duopoly, where you have the "free choice" between a tiny amount of freedom with unlimited telemetry and no freedom with convenience for a big buck.
> Do you honestly believe "a free market" would only produce two alternatives
No. A free market will eventually produce a single monopolistic winner.
If you have ability to buy your competition, and most of people consider it a job and not some religious calling, monopoly is the most logical outcome.
Same way a black hole is the most logical outcome of gravity.
Technically for US residents Apple can throw you in prison for attempting to maintain and use your freedoms, thanks to the anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA.
