Well written, but its starting point seems to be “Apple used to be force for good”. — It is a corporation. It wants your money. This is not new. This is not any different from Lilly (Mounjaro), or Google, or any other, er… corporation.
The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs?
Because many people hold Apple to higher standards, that is why.
> The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs?
This is exactly what Apple did when they stood their ground against the FBI in the case of the San Bernardino shooter though. Of course, Obama could hardly be called a dictator, and wasn't a petty, vindictive man like our current president. But it'd still be good to see Cook rediscover that "fuck you, make me" attitude from the old Apple.
Maybe it's not a great idea to allow a company to decide what software users can run, and I am inclined to believe that Murphy's Law will apply. Ultimately, software is freedom of speech.
I get that point as a person who frequents HN, but for many regular people that’s probably a net positive. People would install random apps or browser extensions just to gain an advantage in some Facebook click came.
Having some kind of hidden “I know what I’m doing” mode would make sense, but would probably defeated the same way as “I’ll teach you how to open browser console” to paste some command exploits.
The fact of the matter is that most people are stupid and a company that protects its customers from themselves will be more successful and outcompete a "moral" company.
It seems we expect the government to step in and fix this. But it’s not a neutral party. Even before Trump collusion between moneyed interests and politicians was high. Those who hold the money hold the power. And those with the money have decided that even free speech has worn out its welcome. To the point of using its military to invade its own cities.
I just don’t see us righting ourselves through the electoral process. If we are ever going to fix our government it will need to happen through mass strikes. That’s the most credible alternative. In the meantime our state of affairs will likely continue to decay. Climate change, authoritarianism, debt and austerity. These are only going to get worse. Eventually we will be forced to get our collective act together.
> Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda?
Centralized Appstore monopolies are best friends of the authoritarian governments. Both Google and Apple readily removed any app the local government points them to, saying that they are committed to working in accordance with the legislation of countries where they provide their services.
"....but added that it complies with the local laws of each particular country." [0]
One of which only existed because Android was open source in the first place (but the app store was not). Something far more generous than most companies.
It's not "their devices". I recently bought a house and the previous owner kept trying to influence what I did with it, and everyone -- even those in government who ultimately had to help enforce my ownership rights -- agreed with me that that was ridiculous and intolerable. When Apple, Samsung, or whoever else sells something it isn't their's anymore! They have no right to continued involvement in it! That's how selling works!
Sounds like a right to repair argument. It will lose. Try putting linux on a windows-10 laptop. That BIOS is nailed down hard. It can be done but its a right PITA
Agreed, Alex... but the Chrome team is not different. Nor is Edge. All three companies are willing to use all of their products for authoritarian control. The web platform feels no less captured than the app market.
It is very different. I develop and app that has iOS, Android and web version and iOS is by far the most problematic platform in this regard. Takes a few minutes to deploy a fresh web app. It takes a few weeks of being bullied by Apple to ship iOS app, and it's very miserable experience.
says that there are over 1700 apps removed per year due to "government takedown demands". Since this is separate from about 2 million (!) apps they rejected from the app store and about 80,000 apps they removed from the app store on their own initiative, it stands to reason that they would have disagreed with quite a lot of those requests, but they still obeyed them.
One could think about this in at least two ways:
(1) If the 2,000,000 apps they rejected or the 80,000 apps they removed on their own initiative were very dangerous or very harmful in some way, one might believe that Apple's huge and arbitrary power over iPhones is ultimately beneficial because it's mostly used to protect people, and only slightly used to uphold state power over citizens.
(2) If you compare this to the baseline of "OS developers shouldn't decide what software you can run", then it's already, well, thousands of programs, probably often quite popular ones, that people are being intentionally prevented from using because their governments disapprove. And probably quite routinely for reasons that large parts of the population would disagree with. It is already a frequent event; in some countries (it's a long tail so the absolute majority of the removals in 2024 were attributable to the PRC!) it's plausible that most iPhone users directly experience the results of app censorship.
(You could add to this that users would also be divided about some of Apple's decisions on its own initiative, primarily apps that the company banned for sexual or violent content, usually fictional. Some users may agree with Apple using its power this way and other users may disagree. A recent example is that they've banned the SpicyChat AI erotic chat app, and probably many other "AI boyfriend/girlfriend" apps. In the past, they've banned apps created by various porn sites.)
I think this issue is confusing. I've always believed that device owners should have complete control of their computing devices and not be subject to other people's power when using them. You can see people in this thread pointing out that sometimes this power is being used to protect users (including from having their devices hijacked by malicious third parties, which would also tend to significantly undermine their control of their devices... although one can then argue about what responsibility different parties had to actively prevent that outcome). The argument that technological paternalism contributes to maximizing users' practical control is an argument that must be engaged with. And also, sometimes it's simply not being used to protect users at all.
By the way, if you get into the object level issue then you can get even more confused:
(1) I think the U.S. government probably wanted to ban this particular app merely because it was successful at helping people avoid deportation. But it might turn out that, with this app or with some future app that looks superficially similar, it actually is being used to coordinate violent attacks, even if the developer didn't intend that outcome. At some point, governments will have a case that there is some kind of meaningful physical-world harm associated with the observed usage of some piece of software. (More on that in other points below.)
(2) If Apple literally prevented itself from having the power to approve or reject software for iOS (e.g. by allowing "sideloading", which was the norm for almost all historical computing environments), then you literally could have apps that explicitly describe themselves as meant to coordinate violence (against law enforcement, against minority groups, against specific people, or whatever). This is not a strawman. It's really easy to write such an app. There is no reason to think that people who know how to write apps are all refraining from writing violence-coordination apps. In other contexts, people might be able to agree not to blame toolmakers for downstream uses of their tools, like not blaming radio manufacturers for having their radios be able to receive the broadcast incitements to genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. So maybe we would eventually similarly be able to agree not to blame Apple for making an OS that could run the "Let's Kill ______" third-party app. But we should understand that on some occasions such an app would probably exist. You know, there are video games whose content is actually pretty gross by almost any given standard. A lot of people have been able to agree that those games can exist, or at least that people other than the developers bear no responsibility for their availability.
(3) You could say that Apple should just make good ethical object-level case-by-case decisions about how to use its power, which is probably what they try to do most of the time, but they sometimes fail, or sometimes there isn't a consensus within the company or within a society about what the right call should be. In this case, we're going to be back here again and again talking about the merits of different app bans, when they manage to get wide enough attention. Remember, again, there were already 1700 app bans per year last year, and presumably lots of governments are only just waking up to the possibility of demanding them!
(4) Governments are already using offline harms to justify incredibly intrusive control of computing and communications. Some of those offline harms are real, not speculative. For example, there really were lynchings coordinated via WhatsApp groups and via WhatsApp memes in several developing countries. The remedies and "solutions" that many governments have suggested in response to such things are incredibly scary.
Excellent points. I don’t think anyone has a problem with app removal per se, but with the fact that Apple is bending the knee to a corrupt government to buy favours. When that happens, people lose trust that apps were removed for safeguarding and start wondering “what are they hiding from me”.
Agreed.
In any way you put it, when you push the "argument" to its retranchement, it equivocates to: we should ban usage of paper/pen/printing press because those things can be used to make propaganda for other groups than the power in place.
Of course, tech makes all of this more efficient but it's not like if the government does not have access to the tool as well and it's not like if they didn't come up with yet many more creative ways to control and punish undesirable behavior.
Best (worst) case scenario it's fair game but with their control the common law-abiding man just gets fucked in the end for not much benefits (fake security yeah).
> ...and Apple is all but refusing, playing games to prevent powerful and safe iOS browsers and the powerful web applications they facilitate. Web applications that can challenge the App Store.
I have been patronized about this for years, but I still maintain that Jobs' opposition to Flash was its conflict with the App Store, and not that it was a security problem as he and his flying monkeys insisted.
98% agreed. Sometimes even smart and savvy persons end up doing it, I did once on SourceForge via their confusing buttons. But the virus was a Windows variant and would not run on my Mac. SourceForge has since cleaned up their act so no shade on them today.
I don't think Google has handled Android particularly well, but you have to be on some 1990s Netscape kool-aid to think that the web is or should be "the primary way for users to experience computing". Computing is just one kind of online service, and despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task. Computing through the use of such programs is not a bad thing. Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time. Some of the fuckery-duckery Google has tried to pull with Android should be criticized, but it's not as cut and dry as "the web is open, everything else is proprietary vendor lock".
Most applications are forms and slow moving visualizations. Consider banking - banking is very complicated. It's just forms and slow moving visualizations. It can, and should, be on the web.
> despite decades of effort to attempt to force-fit all applications into a browser, sometimes just a damn program that runs natively on the CPU is a much better fit for the task
WebAssembly will run natively if ECMAScript is holding you back.
While it's still on a VM, so is Java, and that's the only mainstream game in town for "native" Android apps.
It'd be exciting to see what the web could be if Apple didn't spend decades dragging their heels implementing standards for progressive web apps (PWAs) because they know it'll cut into their app store gravy train.
I miss the native apps + Internet protocols of the 1990's, even though Web pays most of the bills, it should have stayed as an hypermedia documents platform.
When I moved to iPhones a few years back (death of Windows Mobile, and I wasn't suffering Android again, see every reason under the sun why), I set some really hard limits on not being in the ecosystem. It's a good phone, but I won't buy paid apps, do not accessorize beyond a case. Everything I use tends to just be client apps for things I do on the web at a desk.
(Apparently a few years ago was... like six years. Dang the base model iPhone 11 got me really far.)
It’s insane to me that you deify their computers so much. It’s just the only popular computer company that has a coherent set of high level APIs and good hardware. It’s sad that they’re the only one but it doesn’t make them God
The point is that it's all just an excuse. So long as the app store is your only alternative they can charge 30% and get away with it, and they'll say whatever you want to hear so long as it lets them continue to do that.
They don't really give a shit about you, they just want your money.
To me, Apple has BEEN far behind. It's been far behind since the removal of the headphone jack. It's been far behind in the lack of USB integration.
It's been way, way far behind the standard of technology, yet people are so pseudo-intellectual about it, to cope for the fact that they spent a ridiculous amount of cash on what is basically mainstream Linux.
You can't do anything really interesting with it. You can barely game. It's simply for the mind-numbing office work, and nothing else. You're stuck in this room - this office work Eco system - and you don't know how to leave, and it's all Apple's fault you fell for the bait. You just want to open a window (pun intended) and let fresh air in, but there are no windows, and it's all Apple's fault.
I just want to remind people that the alternative to authority is anarchy. No, not the utopian kind, Star Trek style. Think: Mad Max.
I’m trying to communicate with relatives of my partner while on holiday. We have iPhones, they all have Androids. We asked them to install “ChatGPT” because its voice mode is shockingly good at near-real-time translation.
When I type “ChatGPT” into the Apple App Store, the top hit is… drumroll… the very same, by OpenAI.
My uncle in law was struggling a bit on his phone and showed me what came up: a wall of fakes. Scam app after scam app, all with similar icons and similar names “GPT Talk”, “Chatty GTP”, and garbage like that.
Why would anyone want this?
Why would I prefer this?
Why would you… unless you’re an “app developer” working for… not the company that ought to be getting the first and only search result.
The problem here — specifically here on Hacker News — is that a lot of you work for those companies. Startups faking till they make it, engaging in guerrilla marketing, less then perfectly legal practices… hoping to be the next Uber or AirBnB by emulating them.
Politely, and with all due respect: Bugger off.
Your arguments come from unclean hands.
Most of the world likes the authority of the App Store.
If you don’t, if you’re vocal about “rules are bad!” it says volumes about you, not the rules and the people that enforce them.
- Mad Max is not a great example of anarchy, as the last couple of movies featured a government led by an autocrat (haven't seen the other ones)
- The Play Store being bad does not mean the App Store is not also bad
- How do you know most of the world likes the authority of the App Store? Is it not more likely that most of the world are ignorant of its rules, and assumes a free and open marketplace?
I partially agree that the authority has its use and that restricting the freedom to publish apps in some way is reasonable to prevent problems.
The problem with Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) is that it goes way further than that. It dictates what technologies you can use, it dictates a ton of specific rules for how your app should behave, it gatekeeps your bug fixes, it takes an absolutely obnoxious share of your revenue while providing just bare minimum service, with decades old bugs you have to workaround. Many of those things also makes the service worse for their users - it really feels like as a developer for their platform, you're in a hostile relationship with them, and pay for it.
Seems like the app stores could just seperate into App Store Recommended and Community apps. Then you keep both but the app store vetted ones are top always.
The place where your uncle in law was finding scam apps was not some obscure website where he was downloading scam APKs. It was a centralized store from Google, just a poorly managed one.
I, for that matter, use Android. Not out of love for Google (much to the opposite, I despise them and everything they do), but out of a lack of alternative. I do value the freedom to at least use an alternative store (F-Droid), and a system that is not completely hostile to a user that has at least a semblance of an idea of what he is doing.
> the alternative to authority is anarchy.
No. Anarchy always devolves into authoritarianism. Those with the bigger stick will rule over the others through strength.
The only alternative to authority is the very imperfect freedom that comes with democracy. It sort of sucks, it is full of compromises, and is something that ensures that no one will be perfectly happy. But it's so much better than your desire to have a boot on your neck.
clutter55561|4 months ago
The idea that a CEO will stand up to his democratically elected dictator is absurd. Why should he, when the dictator is merely implementing the policies he said he would during the campaign and still got elected? Why should he make himself and his company and his shareholders martyrs?
Because many people hold Apple to higher standards, that is why.
nozzlegear|4 months ago
This is exactly what Apple did when they stood their ground against the FBI in the case of the San Bernardino shooter though. Of course, Obama could hardly be called a dictator, and wasn't a petty, vindictive man like our current president. But it'd still be good to see Cook rediscover that "fuck you, make me" attitude from the old Apple.
slightlyoff|4 months ago
Nothing you allege was missed, and indeed it was considered at length in the longer series on these topics:
https://infrequently.org/series/browser-choice-must-matter/
fnwbr|4 months ago
Not really; I'd have the same expectation of any other individual or company of the given size.
mycocola|4 months ago
dewey|4 months ago
Having some kind of hidden “I know what I’m doing” mode would make sense, but would probably defeated the same way as “I’ll teach you how to open browser console” to paste some command exploits.
Ferret7446|4 months ago
grafmax|4 months ago
I just don’t see us righting ourselves through the electoral process. If we are ever going to fix our government it will need to happen through mass strikes. That’s the most credible alternative. In the meantime our state of affairs will likely continue to decay. Climate change, authoritarianism, debt and austerity. These are only going to get worse. Eventually we will be forced to get our collective act together.
shafiemoji|4 months ago
wiseowise|4 months ago
Surely you don’t want your fellow citizens to fall for Russian, Chinese, Another State Actor propaganda?
State surveillance on unprecedented level? Don’t be paranoid! Surely a state actor would never abuse the power to snoop for your private photos[2]!
Electronic waste? Duopoly? Censorship? Ownership? Those are made up words, comrade!
[1] - https://youtu.be/cwCtM6D4GOc
[2] - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/karen-r...
Andrew_nenakhov|4 months ago
Centralized Appstore monopolies are best friends of the authoritarian governments. Both Google and Apple readily removed any app the local government points them to, saying that they are committed to working in accordance with the legislation of countries where they provide their services.
"....but added that it complies with the local laws of each particular country." [0]
[0]: https://www.techspot.com/news/67701-russia-tells-apple-googl...
whatevaa|4 months ago
willtemperley|4 months ago
I laughed out loud at this. Google lost two antitrust lawsuits this year alone.
jauntywundrkind|4 months ago
Mindwipe|4 months ago
The only way to ensure this doesn't happen is to criminalise device manufacturers being in charge of what software runs on their devices.
john01dav|4 months ago
rahkiin|4 months ago
BrenBarn|4 months ago
john_the_writer|4 months ago
ocdtrekkie|4 months ago
panstromek|4 months ago
immibis|4 months ago
slightlyoff|4 months ago
[deleted]
schoen|4 months ago
https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/docs/2024-App-Sto...
says that there are over 1700 apps removed per year due to "government takedown demands". Since this is separate from about 2 million (!) apps they rejected from the app store and about 80,000 apps they removed from the app store on their own initiative, it stands to reason that they would have disagreed with quite a lot of those requests, but they still obeyed them.
One could think about this in at least two ways:
(1) If the 2,000,000 apps they rejected or the 80,000 apps they removed on their own initiative were very dangerous or very harmful in some way, one might believe that Apple's huge and arbitrary power over iPhones is ultimately beneficial because it's mostly used to protect people, and only slightly used to uphold state power over citizens.
(2) If you compare this to the baseline of "OS developers shouldn't decide what software you can run", then it's already, well, thousands of programs, probably often quite popular ones, that people are being intentionally prevented from using because their governments disapprove. And probably quite routinely for reasons that large parts of the population would disagree with. It is already a frequent event; in some countries (it's a long tail so the absolute majority of the removals in 2024 were attributable to the PRC!) it's plausible that most iPhone users directly experience the results of app censorship.
(You could add to this that users would also be divided about some of Apple's decisions on its own initiative, primarily apps that the company banned for sexual or violent content, usually fictional. Some users may agree with Apple using its power this way and other users may disagree. A recent example is that they've banned the SpicyChat AI erotic chat app, and probably many other "AI boyfriend/girlfriend" apps. In the past, they've banned apps created by various porn sites.)
I think this issue is confusing. I've always believed that device owners should have complete control of their computing devices and not be subject to other people's power when using them. You can see people in this thread pointing out that sometimes this power is being used to protect users (including from having their devices hijacked by malicious third parties, which would also tend to significantly undermine their control of their devices... although one can then argue about what responsibility different parties had to actively prevent that outcome). The argument that technological paternalism contributes to maximizing users' practical control is an argument that must be engaged with. And also, sometimes it's simply not being used to protect users at all.
By the way, if you get into the object level issue then you can get even more confused:
(1) I think the U.S. government probably wanted to ban this particular app merely because it was successful at helping people avoid deportation. But it might turn out that, with this app or with some future app that looks superficially similar, it actually is being used to coordinate violent attacks, even if the developer didn't intend that outcome. At some point, governments will have a case that there is some kind of meaningful physical-world harm associated with the observed usage of some piece of software. (More on that in other points below.)
(2) If Apple literally prevented itself from having the power to approve or reject software for iOS (e.g. by allowing "sideloading", which was the norm for almost all historical computing environments), then you literally could have apps that explicitly describe themselves as meant to coordinate violence (against law enforcement, against minority groups, against specific people, or whatever). This is not a strawman. It's really easy to write such an app. There is no reason to think that people who know how to write apps are all refraining from writing violence-coordination apps. In other contexts, people might be able to agree not to blame toolmakers for downstream uses of their tools, like not blaming radio manufacturers for having their radios be able to receive the broadcast incitements to genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. So maybe we would eventually similarly be able to agree not to blame Apple for making an OS that could run the "Let's Kill ______" third-party app. But we should understand that on some occasions such an app would probably exist. You know, there are video games whose content is actually pretty gross by almost any given standard. A lot of people have been able to agree that those games can exist, or at least that people other than the developers bear no responsibility for their availability.
(3) You could say that Apple should just make good ethical object-level case-by-case decisions about how to use its power, which is probably what they try to do most of the time, but they sometimes fail, or sometimes there isn't a consensus within the company or within a society about what the right call should be. In this case, we're going to be back here again and again talking about the merits of different app bans, when they manage to get wide enough attention. Remember, again, there were already 1700 app bans per year last year, and presumably lots of governments are only just waking up to the possibility of demanding them!
(4) Governments are already using offline harms to justify incredibly intrusive control of computing and communications. Some of those offline harms are real, not speculative. For example, there really were lynchings coordinated via WhatsApp groups and via WhatsApp memes in several developing countries. The remedies and "solutions" that many governments have suggested in response to such things are incredibly scary.
clutter55561|4 months ago
seec|4 months ago
Of course, tech makes all of this more efficient but it's not like if the government does not have access to the tool as well and it's not like if they didn't come up with yet many more creative ways to control and punish undesirable behavior.
Best (worst) case scenario it's fair game but with their control the common law-abiding man just gets fucked in the end for not much benefits (fake security yeah).
rendall|4 months ago
I have been patronized about this for years, but I still maintain that Jobs' opposition to Flash was its conflict with the App Store, and not that it was a security problem as he and his flying monkeys insisted.
buyucu|4 months ago
Y-bar|4 months ago
9dev|4 months ago
heisenbit|4 months ago
bitwize|4 months ago
wiseowise|4 months ago
Such as?
> Providing a central distribution point for such programs is not a bad thing—Linux distros do it all the time.
It is a bad thing if it is
A) the only source of distribution
B) controlled only by the software vendor providing the OS
array_key_first|4 months ago
Also, most native apps are just web views anyway.
cube00|4 months ago
WebAssembly will run natively if ECMAScript is holding you back.
While it's still on a VM, so is Java, and that's the only mainstream game in town for "native" Android apps.
It'd be exciting to see what the web could be if Apple didn't spend decades dragging their heels implementing standards for progressive web apps (PWAs) because they know it'll cut into their app store gravy train.
pjmlp|4 months ago
unknown|4 months ago
[deleted]
hexage1814|4 months ago
GabrielMMMM|4 months ago
WhereIsTheTruth|4 months ago
Corporate tax in Apple land is 30%
Funny?
xuki|4 months ago
whatevaa|4 months ago
blurbleblurble|4 months ago
[deleted]
ocdtrekkie|4 months ago
(Apparently a few years ago was... like six years. Dang the base model iPhone 11 got me really far.)
pjmlp|4 months ago
bowsamic|4 months ago
It’s insane to me that you deify their computers so much. It’s just the only popular computer company that has a coherent set of high level APIs and good hardware. It’s sad that they’re the only one but it doesn’t make them God
Razengan|4 months ago
[deleted]
Panzer04|4 months ago
They don't really give a shit about you, they just want your money.
yard2010|4 months ago
The same goes for the government as well IMHO. Authoritarian regimes are not any better than non authoritarian ones, it's just a management style.
ValveFan6969|4 months ago
jiggawatts|4 months ago
I’m trying to communicate with relatives of my partner while on holiday. We have iPhones, they all have Androids. We asked them to install “ChatGPT” because its voice mode is shockingly good at near-real-time translation.
When I type “ChatGPT” into the Apple App Store, the top hit is… drumroll… the very same, by OpenAI.
My uncle in law was struggling a bit on his phone and showed me what came up: a wall of fakes. Scam app after scam app, all with similar icons and similar names “GPT Talk”, “Chatty GTP”, and garbage like that.
Why would anyone want this?
Why would I prefer this?
Why would you… unless you’re an “app developer” working for… not the company that ought to be getting the first and only search result.
The problem here — specifically here on Hacker News — is that a lot of you work for those companies. Startups faking till they make it, engaging in guerrilla marketing, less then perfectly legal practices… hoping to be the next Uber or AirBnB by emulating them.
Politely, and with all due respect: Bugger off.
Your arguments come from unclean hands.
Most of the world likes the authority of the App Store.
If you don’t, if you’re vocal about “rules are bad!” it says volumes about you, not the rules and the people that enforce them.
mycocola|4 months ago
- The Play Store being bad does not mean the App Store is not also bad
- How do you know most of the world likes the authority of the App Store? Is it not more likely that most of the world are ignorant of its rules, and assumes a free and open marketplace?
panstromek|4 months ago
The problem with Apple (and to a lesser extent Google) is that it goes way further than that. It dictates what technologies you can use, it dictates a ton of specific rules for how your app should behave, it gatekeeps your bug fixes, it takes an absolutely obnoxious share of your revenue while providing just bare minimum service, with decades old bugs you have to workaround. Many of those things also makes the service worse for their users - it really feels like as a developer for their platform, you're in a hostile relationship with them, and pay for it.
parlortricks|4 months ago
surgical_fire|4 months ago
The place where your uncle in law was finding scam apps was not some obscure website where he was downloading scam APKs. It was a centralized store from Google, just a poorly managed one.
I, for that matter, use Android. Not out of love for Google (much to the opposite, I despise them and everything they do), but out of a lack of alternative. I do value the freedom to at least use an alternative store (F-Droid), and a system that is not completely hostile to a user that has at least a semblance of an idea of what he is doing.
> the alternative to authority is anarchy.
No. Anarchy always devolves into authoritarianism. Those with the bigger stick will rule over the others through strength.
The only alternative to authority is the very imperfect freedom that comes with democracy. It sort of sucks, it is full of compromises, and is something that ensures that no one will be perfectly happy. But it's so much better than your desire to have a boot on your neck.
unknown|4 months ago
[deleted]
Andrew_nenakhov|4 months ago
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist [0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came