It's not a scrapeability problem; it's a freedom problem. The article mentions this. Why should the app stores decide what can and cannot be on our phones, and why should they add a 30% tax on everything that is published on mobile? There are a lot of claims that the tech industry is disrupting the big music and books businesses, for the benefit of consumers, but these new players are acting like the middlemen they are replacing.
The web reduces the distance between content consumers and producers, cutting out the middleman. It's not a perfect solution. Standards are greatly influenced by commercial interests. But it's better than a locked-down app store oligopoly.
>Why should the app stores decide what can and cannot be on our phones
This is not a freedom problem. You have the freedom to buy an Android device, and you have the freedom to install any apk you want without ever even opening the Google app store. Moreover, Google even allows 3rd party app stores on their devices.
And of course these new players are acting as middlemen, but you are forgetting the fundamental difference, and this is what has changed the game. Anybody can publish their app, virtually for free. There are no gatekeepers, who decide what gets published and what doesn't, anymore.
There are no gatekeepers, who decide what gets published
and what doesn't, anymore.
Apple routinely rejects applications to their App store. Have you not read any of the numerous stories where app devs get denied?
This is not a freedom problem. You have the freedom to
buy an Android device, and you have the freedom to install
any apk you want without ever even opening the Google app
store.
The freedom to do something like "install any app via .apk" may exist, but it is still a "freedom problem" when there's a large barrier to installing an .apk on your device. I'm speculating of course, but real world anecdotes would lead me to believe that a very small % of the population even knows what an APK is.
>Apple routinely rejects applications to their App store. Have you not read any of the numerous stories where app devs get denied?
Yes, I am aware. And yes, you are right. But the gatekeeping on the app stores has nothing to do with the music, movie or even book industry. Could they be more lenient? Yes, but you can't denied that the game has indeed changed.
>I'm speculating of course, but real world anecdotes would lead me to believe that a very small % of the population even knows what an APK is.
I would say that you are right again. And you are also right, maybe this is a debate about freedom, but personally, I don't consider having to go to settings, security and checking a box, a large barrier to freedom. If you actually seek freedom, it's only a few (acceptable) steps away.
Sure, you have the freedom to install any apps you want.
However, if I am starting a business, and most people don't know how to exercise that freedom to install an app from somewhere else, I am not going to get very far in my business if this is what is required for my end users to use my program. Therefore, I am not going to invest time in developing anything that requires that sort of installation, making it practically the same as not being able to do that at all.
Disagree. First of all, Google's practices aren't the norm, and might not remain the norm. Second of all, merely making and supporting your app multiple times for different platforms using their different visual / interaction idioms is a large economic effect. Even with cross-platform mobile frameworks, unless you decide not to test / support platforms other than your main one.
Standards are good because they bridge this gap. C runs on everything, e-mail runs on everything, the web runs on everything. Mobile web, for the most part, runs on everything.
edit: For the record, I do think that the mobile web standards need more work, but they're quite good at this point, and adoption is much better than 2 years ago. I'd like to see open standards for push notifications, for example (apparently there is some work done: http://www.w3.org/TR/push-api/).
i dont get why its considered hard to install an apk.. u download it and run it..and android will say u need to tick some box to install this and u do.. and then it installs.. people download and install windows software all the time, it works almost the same...
Apple and Google gets to act as middle men because their app store provides value to the end user.
Users are free to use the mobile browser on their phones but most of the time native apps are a better experience. And guess who develops the framework and tools to create these value-adding native apps.
But there's not an anti-trust situation with app stores: Apple, Microsoft and Google all maintain their own app stores. No, they don't let anyone else operate an app store on their mobile platform, but other companies are free to create their own mobile platforms if they don't like that. Apple and Google aren't doing anything illegal to stop other mobile platforms from existing; it's just that users really don't want another platform right now.
>But there's not an anti-trust situation with app stores
I am not saying that there are current or even future anti-trust issues with app stores. I was simply using that analogy to illustrate that the "free market" can move in a direction that is less free to an extent that is negative for consumers. This can happen because consumers are free to choose.
In other words, that anti-trust laws exist and have been employed to combat this is simply offered as evidence that the great-grandparent post above overlooks the fact that the free market can lead to reduced choice for consumers.
The web reduces the distance between content consumers and producers, cutting out the middleman. It's not a perfect solution. Standards are greatly influenced by commercial interests. But it's better than a locked-down app store oligopoly.