That's a perfectly valid argument IMHO. The argument equating smart phones with consoles however, is downright silly.

Can I ask, how does letting me have the option of occasionally purchasing songs, books, movies and character skins direct from vendors hurt your ability to enjoy the benefits of purchasing everything direct from Apple?

I just don't understand how that would ruin the system for you. If anything, wouldn't it force Apple to improve their store in order to be more competitive? Would that not be a benefit to you?

> The argument equating smart phones with consoles however, is downright silly.

Yea I’m kind of the opposite. I don’t really see the difference. An Xbox has many of the same apps, a web browser, etc.

> I just don't understand how that would ruin the system for you. If anything, wouldn't it force Apple to improve their store in order to be more competitive? Would that not be a benefit to you?

The App Store on iOS and how Apple manages it is effectively a collective bargaining agreement that individual users wouldn’t be all that effective in enforcing. Items like mandating what’s being tracked and how, allowing for anonymous sign-ins, and others are possible because Apple can bargain for users via their control of the App Store.

If you take away the App Store, it’s possible (idk how likely or not though I view it as extremely likely) that Apple I as the user lose that ability to collectively bargain. Companies like Facebook will migrate their apps to third party App Stores where Apple’s beneficial (in my view) rules and terms won’t be enforced. The network effect of apps moving to third party app stores will overwhelm the iOS App Store, and the benefits I enjoy will be largely unenforceable. There won’t be anybody who is even somewhat on my side. There won’t be some sort of competition between a privacy-first Facebook and data harvesting one. So we can’t really tell what users prefer.

Apple also creates a great user experience. One way to pay, a single App Store where everything is, and via their collective bargaining position I can mostly trust that they are trying to enforce rules around privacy, not let junk or scam apps in, etc. I know these rules are not always properly enforced, but they’re there.

So I view third-party app stores as not only not beneficial but hostile to the user experience I enjoy with the iPhone. I’m vehemently against those changes. I’d rather the App Store lose support from major Apps than Apple change how they’re doing things.

And this is kind of how things work on all platforms, stores, etc. There are more strong and loose rules, but I can’t just sell skins on the Epic game store for Fortnite, they don’t allow third-party integrations. I can’t sell apples I grow in my backyard at Wal-Mart either - they have a problem with that. For some reason since Apple makes the best phone and makes the most money people think they should be treated differently, and I don’t.

If users really value these things they’ll buy Android phones or jailbreak iPhones or demand Apple open up things. So far they aren’t. It’s a vocal minority - an absolutely tiny one, and the market seems to pretty clearly say that they prefer things how they are by buying iPhone.

You've articulated your argument very well with the "collective bargaining" metaphor. I like it.

I still strongly disagree that consoles and smart phones should be treated the same way by society just because the underlying hardware is more or less the same. I think we should start with a human-centric view. As in: if consoles disappeared tomorrow how much would the world change? Now what if smartphones did? How would that change the world?

If smartphones disappeared then the world would be entirely different. We are dependant on them for everything from personal and collective security, business and personal communication, to banking, to commerce, and access to knowledge.

Maybe I'm biased because I'm in my 40's and remember a time before smart phones existed, and before game consoles were commonplace. There is no comparison. None. Equating the two because the underlying electronics are the same entirely misses the forest for the trees. Though it's not entirely surprising that HN users would think this way - we tend to think of the underlying tech first and foremost.

Let me use a metaphor - Facebook and Google should be treated differently than a niche message board even though the underlying technology is the same. Right? They are both servers running compiled or interpreted code. They both connect to databases. They both allow users to communicate and share content.

The main difference is the impact they have on society.

Smartphones have become indispensable infrastructure for much of the world. Consoles are a luxury item.