> In China, you will be using Chinese government approved services.
First of all, this is only about app stores. When it comes to “services” in general, people in China already do mostly use government approved ones; the Great Firewall makes sure of that.
Today, you use Apple’s App Store, but Apple blocks whatever apps the Chinese government tells them to. Is that really such a great situation? Under a sideloading model, at least you’d have the technical ability to opt out of whatever app store anyone told you to use.
As for legal ability, who knows, but any legal restrictions on where you can get apps from would be hard to enforce. And why would phones be any different from desktops, where such restrictions don’t currently exist?
First of all, this is only about app stores. When it comes to “services” in general, people in China already do mostly use government approved ones; the Great Firewall makes sure of that.
Today, you use Apple’s App Store, but Apple blocks whatever apps the Chinese government tells them to. Is that really such a great situation? Under a sideloading model, at least you’d have the technical ability to opt out of whatever app store anyone told you to use.
As for legal ability, who knows, but any legal restrictions on where you can get apps from would be hard to enforce. And why would phones be any different from desktops, where such restrictions don’t currently exist?