We all benefit from but having massive botnets and not having to worry that every app we install is copying all of our data to a server.

Do we really, though? It sounds a lot like buying short term security at the cost of freedom.

We buy that all the time, and ask for a second helping. All things are temporary, and often this is a reasonable tradeoff.

The problem isn't in that transaction, the problem is conflicts of interest. Platform vendors engaged in both gatekeeping and building their own apps have an inherent conflict of interest. I think that Apple in particular (but not Apple alone) abuses it quite brazenly.

The issue isn't that the police exist (a tradeoff of freedom for temporary security, we'd all be freer if they didn't), the issue is when they start shaking me down, or otherwise brutalizing me.

It's true that without Apple and Google's eye we'd have more cases of malware in our devices.

But I think it's also true that people are more than capable of adapting to such landscapes because we already do that with our desktop/laptop computers. Yes, malware exists and people do get their computers infected. But I believe the reliance of a sort of "watchful eye" also makes us lazy.

I mean, the ideal situation is not one where Apple doesn't have an app store. But imo more like what Google does with android where you can install anything if you really want.

I think the cuts these companies take from having a curated store is too high though. And in the case of apple there's simply no alternative (well, there's the nascent stage of an alternative forming in Europe I guess).

> But I believe the reliance of a sort of "watchful eye" also makes us lazy.

This is a common point, but similar to how there was widespread fear that seatbelts would encourage people to drive dangerously.

Security should be baked into the platform and not a task for an 89 year old grandfather to have to deal with.

You can bake security into the platform while still letting power users step over the guard rails. A better analogy than seatbelts would be child locks. Yes, they're great to have. Sure, maybe they should be enabled by default. But you probably wouldn't want to buy a car that had permanent child locks.