Kinda puts it in perspective how weird it is that companies have so much control over how software is distributed and sold these days. This would never have happened a decade ago.
A curated app-store should not be considered synonymous with walled garden. android allows side-loading. windows has "install.exe", the microsoft store and steam co-existing side-by-side. linux distros have their package managers, container images and `curl ... | sudo bash`.
Anyone who argues that all users must be herded into a walled garden in the name of security and alternatives are not acceptable is essentially advocating a digital nanny state.
You missed the essence of my argument. The curl approach serves as an example of some less trustworthy, unvetted ways of installing software, similar to downloading an installer or apk from some random website.
Is it a bad idea? Maybe, especially if you're not technically versed. Does that mean we should take everyone's freedom to make their own choices. "because we know what's best for you"? I don't think so.
I believe that most non-technical users are self-aware enough that they stick to curated app-stores of their own volition.
Better for you maybe, but not better for the average user who ended up with malware infecting their systems left and right because they weren't technical enough to avoid it.
Exactly. I have personally been on the receiving end of plenty of phone calls from users who had no idea they couldn't necessarily trust an application downloaded from a 3rd party site. "But it's the same application!" Sure it is, but who knows what else you're getting, even if it's as 'benign' as shitty toolbars. Has no one ever seen a parent/grandparents nightmare of toolbar hell in a browser window?
We did. And somehow the computer revolution still happened even though people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked.
Meanwhile in that crazy wild west the whole OSS infrastructure powering the most important global computer network was born. Tools, operating systems and software that isn't allowed to exist in app stores because they might be "dangerous" to the average user (whoever that is).
people actually had to learn a bit about how their tools worked.
They didn't, though; they just muddled through and asked their friends or some tech support service to reinstall Windows occasionally, when the viruses, adware and other crap made the computer too slow, or when the ramsomware encrypted all their files.
a) Educate users and give them more knowledge and better tools to easily protect themselves
or
b) Have app-stores organized in such a way that user interests and legitimate security concerns are not conflated with commercial interests of the platform owners as it's currently the case. Either treat app stores as a public utility with rights and regulations or require all devices to support competing stores.
You don't necessarily need a walled garden to solve that problem - package managers on Linux distribution do the same.
It needs the appropriate user experience for non-technical users.
This is an excellent example: all of those less "walled gardens" ended up a mess of malware and abusive advertising. It's a pretty clear trade-off so far as I can tell.
To be honest I think the chrome extension storefront(?) is pretty decent as well. It's just a matter of curation from the point they've got it at. The reality is that the average user _wants_ a barrier to entry: no one likes what download.com or sourceforge have become.
Mozilla now, and not sure how long it's been doing this, does code review on all submitted extensions to their extension marketplace. Google chrome's store is less restrictive as they don't do any review of it but rely on user reports to find violations of TOU/malicious activity.
Similar approaches to the apple app store vs. android store... up front binary check from apple vs. a permissive store with user reports being the primary thing that pulls apps from circulation.
They've improved user security, but the amount of garbage to sift through is terrible.
From my POV, it's like complaining that the seat belt left a bruise after an automotive collision; IOW, missing the bigger picture. I can sort my own garbage, thanks (and that's not to say that you're not right about the quality in app stores). It's easy, and if I screw it up then I've just got a garbage binary taking up space that is otherwise harmless.
But what I grow increasingly tired of is wondering if bad actors have found new ways to make my life difficult before I install that random app. Download from an app store, the app might be garbage, but at least I can be confident that it won't trash my machine. Servers, my dev machine? Sure, I'm willing to put up with a little more rigamorole for more control, etc. But my phone? I don't want to put up with that crap, vetting everything binary that goes on the box. I just want to tap and download, and if the quality of the app sucks, then fixing that is a long-press away.
A fair point that I apparently missed. Because, yeah, though an app from an app store might not trash my machine, it ain't all rainbows and roses in AppStoreLand, either.
It was more than that, originally, it just degraded over time. They also bought up all the good competitors (softseek anyone?) and then killed them off.
A decade ago there were many more, much higher hurdles to software distribution.
This developer's woes are nothing compared to the challenges to getting shrink-wrapped software in boxes, getting people to download and install an executable, or god forbid getting a mobile app onto one of the mobile carrier's app stores,
Or, increasingly, the web. Sure some things will always have to be native but that list is getting shorter all the time and would be shorter still if Apple were keeping up with web standards in Safari.
No, the walled garden is the walled garden. The expert consultant is often a relative or favorite blogger or golfing buddy or corporate IT person.
How many of us have set up a clueless person's computer? We give them a restricted user account, so they can't install 500 random spyware/adware toolbars. We change the IE/Edge shortcut to open Firefox instead. We install ad-blockers and script-blockers with an overly generous whitelist. Maybe we even install Linux with remote admin, and automatic updates, and just slap on a wm that looks vaguely like Windows. Their expert is us, or people like us, and our services are not always bought with spendable currency.
I don't always enjoy being that expert, or getting paid for it in cookies and ugly sweaters. And in that situation, the walled garden is great. We can all roll our clueless friends up in carpets and dump them over the wall, where they can stumble around all day without getting hurt.
But some people can actually make a business out of it. They do exist. And some of them won't shamelessly price-gouge their clueless customers.
The difference is, that that user can turn off the walled garden if they will. That user can also choose what it wants inside the garden instead of being told what he can use by someone from California which may or may not share the values or culture.
And what I'm saying is that for most people that expert is Apple, or Microsoft, or Google depending on what OS/Device we're talking about. And the company running the walled garden is that expert because they have already paid them to be such.
