No. If the app wants to sell me out to bigcorps, Apple will ban them from the store.

Of course, as a consumer, I'll have the choice to leave the Apple store and follow my favorite apps elsewhere. But if the 3rd-party stores end up with a reputation of being insecure, then consumers will refuse to use them. And everything will be fine.

> Now imagine that Epic wins the fight, has millions of teens on the fortnite needle and no one to prevent them or some inside bad actor to demand whatever device clearance they want.

Then Apple will ban them from the store, and teens will either follow them elsewhere, or they won't.

In theory, this is already possible with Android. But people can't have this argument both ways.

- If jumping ship to Android is easy and available to everyone who owns an Apple device, then clearly having an escape hatch out of Apple's store isn't a big deal and consumers are smart enough to choose whether or not they want to download apps from a secure store.

- If consumers aren't smart enough to choose their own platform based on security, and the cost and difficulty of moving outside of Apple's ecosystem is the only reason why stupid teens aren't being exploited by Fortnite right now, then clearly the "consumers voluntarily choose to stay with Apple" argument is nonsense.

Nobody is talking about forcing Apple to get rid of their store. You will always have the choice to opt into downloading apps only from a secure, strictly managed, curated storefront.

This logic will not work for fortnite users, because you do not expect a knowledge about insecure stores more prevalent among them more than that there is fortnite. You logic works for highly logical and disciplined people, but not for those who want that unique thing that everyone has. Epic simply doesn't care as much as apple/google about a platform sanity, because it is not their net loss in the end. It's the reason very similar to why we ban drugs off the streets. Drugs are fun, but they have heavy strings attached, and much less than everyone realizes that in full detail, while sellers lose nothing.

>You will always have the choice to opt into downloading apps only from a secure, strictly managed, curated storefront.

You seem to have missed the "app-makers" part. If apple to allow more profiting stores, the culture of selling there will grow exponentially and there will be no apps left in appstore beyond few generic and very safe-statused. All custom calculators, galleries and unique apps will be able to demand your AB, geo, etc, because it is even more profit. And they will be listed at the top because more money means more promotion. It is a systematic problem, not just one of a choice.

Then why hasn't this already happened? Are app developers free to abandon iOS and move to Android or not? Why haven't they all done so?

And if developers can't realistically abandon iOS or reject Apple's terms and remain profitable, then doesn't that add a lot of evidence to the idea that Apple is a duopoly with a stranglehold over a significant section of the market?

> this logic will not work for fortnite users, because you do not expect a knowledge about insecure stores more prevalent among them more than that there is fortnite.

Why haven't the Fortnite users all moved to Android so they can install the manipulative apps and games that aren't available on iOS?

If they're free to switch platforms, and they're not smart enough to avoid following bad apps around to lower-quality platforms, then why have they stayed on iOS?

Some of this is due to Apple trying to push for products to be sold for money (up-front, upgrades, subscriptions) rather than being free and advertising supported. Google pushes for apps to be free and advertising based because they are an advertising company.

The second is that android phones may be bought by people who do not intend to use a lot of the smartphone/app features of the device. Apple users tend to go into the store and onto the web more often.

The third being that Apple products tend to attract more profitable demographics of people - people who actually are willing to pay money for things.

These extend outside of the App Store as well, which is one reason why Google pays quite a bit of money to Apple for Google search to be the default search engine of Safari.

If Apple users are generally higher spenders, generally more advanced users that buy apps more often -- then that sounds a lot to me like market pressures that will make an official app store attractive even if iOS allows sideloading. In which case, why are people so frightened of sideloading?

If iOS allows third-party stores, all of the same demographic forces you describe will still exist. Consumers will still want to use a store that offers up-front pricing rather than ads, the iOS market will still be filled with power users who buy apps more often, and they'll still want their apps to be included in a user-friendly, secure store.

If those users you describe are attractive enough to force companies to target them now, then they'll still be attractive enough to force companies to target them after third-party app stores are introduced.

I don't know how to reconcile "devs target iOS because of its unique, opinionated user-base who want a secure platform" with "users are dumb and just follow bad apps without thinking". It can't be both -- either Apple users are too dumb to understand security decisions and can't be taught to avoid shady 3rd-party ad-filled stores, or Apple users are smart enough to consciously opt into a locked-down environment and they understand the implications and tradeoffs of that choice. But how can they be both?

This idea of faking may be the solution against bad actors, but not until apple and google would make that option official. And even then most of naive users will be tricked and burdened into not using it.