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[return to "The App Store was always authoritarian"]
1. jiggaw+m7[view] [source] 2025-10-12 08:38:57
>>bertma+(OP)
I just want to remind people that the alternative to authority is anarchy. No, not the utopian kind, Star Trek style. Think: Mad Max.

I’m trying to communicate with relatives of my partner while on holiday. We have iPhones, they all have Androids. We asked them to install “ChatGPT” because its voice mode is shockingly good at near-real-time translation.

When I type “ChatGPT” into the Apple App Store, the top hit is… drumroll… the very same, by OpenAI.

My uncle in law was struggling a bit on his phone and showed me what came up: a wall of fakes. Scam app after scam app, all with similar icons and similar names “GPT Talk”, “Chatty GTP”, and garbage like that.

Why would anyone want this?

Why would I prefer this?

Why would you… unless you’re an “app developer” working for… not the company that ought to be getting the first and only search result.

The problem here — specifically here on Hacker News — is that a lot of you work for those companies. Startups faking till they make it, engaging in guerrilla marketing, less then perfectly legal practices… hoping to be the next Uber or AirBnB by emulating them.

Politely, and with all due respect: Bugger off.

Your arguments come from unclean hands.

Most of the world likes the authority of the App Store.

If you don’t, if you’re vocal about “rules are bad!” it says volumes about you, not the rules and the people that enforce them.

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2. Andrew+A7[view] [source] 2025-10-12 08:41:15
>>jiggaw+m7
You'll change your mind when Apple will remove the app that you actually need. For now, you remind me of a certain poem:

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

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