The thing is, why would anyone voluntarily use a censored/restricted app store?
For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari.
For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to just create a subset of the Play store that doesn't have Chinese apps, why the hell would anyone use it?
And if the government is forcing the entire population to use its app store -- do they have the authority to do that? I thought India was a democracy with free speech.
I disagree. It's the quite opposite. So many popular apps don't even get a notice before getting banned, let alone small indie developers trying to get some users.
>> why the hell would anyone use it?
Not sure about others but I definetly don't want a US company to put nose in everything I do online. Plus I don't want to give a 30% cut for a regional app that I can publish on some local platform for local users. And I would rather deal with low quality apps than popular apps disappearing every now and then just because Google doesn't like them.
>> do they have the authority to do that?
Yes but it's not practical in country like India to enforce it. Free speech and what govt can regulate about internet are different things as far I've seen.
You're confused. India has a populist, nationalist authoritarian who will stop at nothing to remodel the country somewhere between China and Nazi Germany.
The Indian government can block all other app stores, require
app developers and mobile OSes install spyware SDKs and turn over data about their users, and ban encryption. Then, the "subversives," academics, and journalists can be rounded-up.
You are the one who is confused here with all the fear mongering. With such a huge democratic country like India with all the decades old entrenched power centres one doesn't get to power just by getting elected to office.
For Apple hell yes, maybe their government app store will be less anal than Apple is with their own app store, and e.g. allow other payment channels and allow embedding other rendering engines than Safari.
For Google though ... why wouldn't one just use the Google store instead? It's pretty open, and if their government's motive is to just create a subset of the Play store that doesn't have Chinese apps, why the hell would anyone use it?
And if the government is forcing the entire population to use its app store -- do they have the authority to do that? I thought India was a democracy with free speech.