NO, your phone is not a damn toaster

It’s sad to see how giant companies refuse to take any responsibility or care for their own industry. Even if it’s because of how they started, what conditions of freedom and neutrality they found when they were founded, and what future they are proposing to us.

It’s sad to see Apple‘s reaction. Like that of a capricious child who intends to comply, not because he believes in the essence of what is being asked of him, but only to be able to continue abusing without being disturbed.

Relax Apple and Google. The Apple Store and Google Play are great products, the best. Why that fear of competition? They are not going to disappear, they will not be at risk. Trust in your work.

It’s sad the response from Spotify or Epic, focusing the debate on the commissions. Getting outraged when at the same time they send their DMCAs to other independent, legal, and transparent stores, without any reason.

Europe must not be deceived by entering into the price discussion. That’s not what we need. We ask for real neutrality, effective sideloading, freedom for developers to distribute their products under their conditions in direct relation to their users, the right to decide the source of your applications on your own device. Not whether Apple continues to regulate content or approve its own competition, even if it’s at zero cost.

It’s sad the response from a large part of the community. NO, your phone IS NOT a damn toaster. It’s a key element in the value chain for accessing all the information you consume. It’s not even a specific-purpose device like consoles. It does NOT exclusively have platform-dependent applications.

NO, we don’t want your grandparents to use third-party stores or engage in sideloading if they don’t want to. It doesn’t change the status of those who want to remain under the total control of the big companies.

No friends, the solution is not that you build your own device and your own operating system if you want to share your work as a developer under your conditions. If a group of telecom companies had decided 40 years ago that they were building the networks and protocols, that they had the right to charge and control what happened on the internet, Apple and Google would have nothing today.

It’s sad that in this hostile environment, small companies like Uptodown and so many others whose purpose is to offer more tools to organize the complex world of software, may not survive much longer.