The Verge is actually doing it. Actually connecting the dots between the fascistic tendencies of app stores with the profit motives of their proprietors.
FINALLY.
The open web has been roadkill in the profit games the mobile duopoly has set up, muscled out of view with policies and choices that were designed to leave no fingerprints. But we can all see it clearly now:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/859902/apple-google-run-by-cowards
This piece by Elizabeth Lopatto is a huge service to us all. It cleary and searingly says the true thing (even if in question form): Apple and Google's claims that they should rule our phones *because they can be trusted to* are bullshit. Always have been. And the truly caustic thing is that the corruption eating these companies is eating our democracy too:
https://infrequently.org/2025/10/the-app-store-was-always-authoritarian/
Apple bent the knee for months, leaving many commentators to ask why. But the reasons are not mysterious: Apple wants things that only the government can provide, things that will defend and extend its power to extract rents, rather than innovate. Namely, selective exemption from tarrifs and an end to the spectre of pro-competition regulation and the threat of real browsers in the US, the EU, and around the world.
@Lamal @slightlyoff I'm far more concerned about how much trust we put into these companies because they control our phones.
Bank account access, friends family, email, work, etc.
I've occasionally seen the posts from google users who have Fi, being locked out of everything including cell service because they breached a T&C and didn't know / realise.
Alex Russell
Lam 'al Adie
Chris Woods