'Why should Apple allow sideloading? It's their platform, after all.'
There was a post on Hacker News showing off doesioshavesideloadingyet.com.
Someone commented:
Willing to have my mind changed on this: why should Apple be forced to allow sideloading?
A big part of the reason I use Apple products is that they protect not only me, but my family who don't know what the implications of sideloading are. I know that the apps my phone runs have been given the green light by Apple.
Is the 30% fee egregious? Maybe, but why shouldn't they be able to charge the fees they want? It's their platform. And for those who don't agree with it, like Epic Games, maybe they can go and develop their own phone?
Mandating Apple to allow sideloading is essentially saying "we have no hope of ever developing a competing open platform so we have to use law to force this American company to make us one." Maybe we need less bureaucracy and more building. Send some of that sweet EU funding towards companies building open source tech.
This entire argument grinds my gears.
Modern phones are more like general purpose computers than game consoles. The console argument from Apple is disingenuous and gets far too little pushback from courts. Same goes for its argument that developers who don't like the App Store rules should make web apps — but then the company limits Safari support for PWAs and limits third-party browsers to an older, slower JavaScript engine that they don't even use for Safari anymore.
From a different angle, corporations are not people and do not inherently deserve the same consideration as people. Sideloading provides actual individuals the option of more flexibility in how they use the device they purchased with their hard-earned dollars. Sideloading also provides the freedom to continue to install apps that might be removed due to government pressure. "It's their platform" holds absolutely no weight as an argument in my mind, but reflects excessive deference to corporations.
Apple should be forced because the real-world use of devices it makes is broader than it argues in court, because it is a company not a person, and because other actions it takes restrict the ability of developers to take advantage of the alternative Apple itself promotes.
"Less bureaucracy" is the proposed solution yet the United States, famously lazy about regulating tech, has managed to support only two truly viable mobile operating systems. Not even Microsoft wants to be in the game. This indicates that the bar is much higher than "go and make [your] own" and therefore it is reasonable to expect more of the behemoths.