Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Recently, Google became "an Apple". It no longer bothered to pretend that Android - or even AOSP ("OS" for "Open Source") - was about so-called "openness". Google had long centralised software distribution around its giant "app store" (a concept it copied). Now it demands a monopoly. To reject this monopoly would be called "sideloading" - a demeaning term and a practice it would seek to essentially ban by technical means.
So from a society that swaps floppy disks with software on them (kind of like books) we're turned into digital slaves, whose tools are strictly controlled and monitored by the dictators' army. Devices would not accept/execute code that we write for them, unless they're approved and signed by some hostile companies; even Firefox extensions are already hard to add - even ones that a person writes for his/her own use - without first seeking approval from GAFAM (settings in about:debugging are voided each time Firefox is restarted).
What a catastrophe in the making.
Terms like "tools of production" are politically charged, but irrespective of the words used, it seems increasingly clear where this is all going. Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security". █