Corruption Is A Cost-of-Living Issue: App Store Edition

While I'm not shy about my pro-democracy, anti-authoritarian politics, this blog has kept to a more technical lane, veering into policy only out of necessity. As the scale of the web's setbacks at the hands of proprietary forces became clear, it became urgent to explain the forces at work and raise the alarm. But politics are inescapable now; the abuses inherent in centralised control of native app platforms aren't just enabling violent repression on foreign shores, but threaten the democracy I call home. Not coincidentally, the same forces have driven up prices for consumers and businesses. The control demanded by app stores has served to excuse insufficient platform security while concentrating wealth to a shocking degree, warping public policy along the way. The moral outrages of ICE are just the latest in a long line of corruptions the app stores have fathered. App stores exist to protect gatekeepers, not users, but we abide them specifically because they claim to make us safer.…

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