AppleStore strength is now challenging public freedom

In her quest to replace her tablet, Mia was considering the options available on the 2022 market. While none of the options were made outside China, the performances were drastically promoting the recent iPad pro with its M2 chipset. This was likely the maximum technical consideration she was willing to look at. 

Almost ready to push the order on B&H website, some noises of the alleged scandal of Apple removing Twitter application from the app store was emerging. 

She was not an avid twitter user, and never from her tablet. But the thoughts of being bonded to the decision of a 3rd party on which content she can or cannot consume on her device started becoming a concern. The more she thought about it the more this became a preeminent concern.

App-store has been a big asset for Apple. It allowed to ensure both security and a major revenue stream for the growing iPhone and iPad platform. 

The strict management from Apple allowed to limit the number of fraudulent applications and security weaknesses. The model was so successful it has been partially replicated by competitors. But historically, the constraints imposed by Apple was a concern escalated by early customers and justified the "jailbreaks" in the first versions of iPhone to unlock the phones.

The success of the store is undeniable with about $60 billion revenue per year. It has also contributed to the success of the platform: neat, secure, safe... But today these same reasons are becoming a concern. The current trend of GAFA getting more and more involved on which content is allowed is changing the relationship between customers and App-Store. The past years have seen controversial decisions to prevent access to some applications and information. 

The recent twitter files did not generate the attention likely expected by Musk and the journalists who worked on it, including Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and Michael Shellenberger. The main reason is the lack of scoop. Everyone is presumably already convinced that these "bad" things were already happening. Nothing new there... The second reason is probably even worst; the media supposed to report on this information appears quite involved in the manipulation of public information. Can we really expect the Washington Post to report fairly on material promoted by the Elon Musk team when ever since the acquisition of Twitter, the journal appears to have some kind of vendetta against the new owner. 

GAFA retires "net neutrality" as a concept of the past

Free access to information became more important than free production of the information. In a digital era, it is way simpler to prevent people from reaching the information by simply intervening on the data hosting. Customers and the public are leveraging the good willing of the GAFA to access to what they want. 

As soon as we allow digital infrastructure to prevent some content, it is not surprising to see it used against the people. 

To paraphrase a too-often used sentence, we are seeing a real threat to the democracy by the digital space, ordered and performed by an Imbriglio of power and counter power organization... No balance means no rights for the people.

Therefore, Mia's choice was perhaps even sad, but ultimately simple. The only table worth investing in was not related to its technical capabilities, but by its ability to remain open to the world, independent of the trendy behavior within Apple's management, Google's or others. To conclude, the Microsoft surface was the choice. Is this going to become the new trend? According to Apple, to consider opening the platform to external applications would seem like a real threat for them. 

Maybe upcoming regulations should protect free speech within the digital platform, more than empowering those platforms to play the role of the justice... instead of the judge.

Think Encore !