Thoughts
It’s wild to me how proponents of open market places, in particular with regards to criticisms of Apple, never admit that any of Apple’s
success is due to being a closed a market place. People say things like ‘oh what a shame that the most closed marketplace by complete dumb luck is the most popular.’
Like, you don’t think there’s a correlation there?
Like, Android is right there. It’s about as close to a scientific control group as you’re going to get. It has the ability to install apks from the internet and it doesn’t matter and it doesn’t improve user experience.
Linux on the desktop exists. And it existed ten years before the iPhone. But people don’t want Linux, they want iPhones. And now the people that want Linux are trying to turn the iPhone into Linux.
I’m not defending Tim Cook here. He wants money. He bet the company on services revenue and now he needs that services revenue.
But from a user experience perspective, I would rather have no App Store than a bad App Store. I would replace the sign up button with a “contact developer relations” button and negotiate all deals with developers behind closed doors.
I would still use an iPhone if it didn’t have any third party apps, is my point.