Pavel Durov, billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, said Apple’s move last week to remove the messaging app from its China App Store under order from the Chinese government (CCP).
Reuters:
Durov, billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, said Apple’s move last week to remove the chat app from its China app store had not caused any decrease in downloads from China and criticised Apple instead for its “walled garden” app policies.
Durov published a post in his public channel on Telegram on Monday in which he confirmed that Apple removed multiple apps including Telegram from its App Store in China last week. Apple said the Chinese government ordered the removal, citing “national security” concerns presented by these apps.
But Durov said Beijing’s action was not a move against Telegram but a move against Apple itself. Rather than taking issues with the Chinese regulators, Durov focused much of his post on criticising the iPhone maker, taking aim at Apple’s app policies.
“Once again, Apple shot itself in the foot with its centralized ‘walled garden’ app policies,” he said.
“Unlike iPhones, most Android phones allow sideloading apps outside app stores — such as the direct version of Telegram — so more users from China will migrate to Android…As a result of this change, the iPhone market share in China will keep shrinking.”
Last Friday, in addition to Telegram, Apple pulled WhatsApp, Meta’s Theads, and Signal from the App Store in China.
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MacDailyNews Take: Durov’s criticism is logical and correct.
Those who want safety, security, and privacy will stick to Apple’s App Store, but a single point of control is always a danger, especially when it comes to capricious censorship (see: pre-Musk Twitter, Apple’s App Store in China, etc.).
iPhone and iPad users must, like Mac users, have the ability to install third-party apps; even if they never do, for it will keep Apple honest. The ability to ban an app loses all power when it’s simply available in another App Store. – MacDailyNews, December 13, 2022
Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. — Potter Stewart
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Its up to Chinease people to step up and fight their government, not Apple. If you do not follow the local laws you either leave the market entirely (which would not benefit Apple users in China) or get fined until you run out of assets. Neither is an great option.
You don’t be the central censor for your market!
While he is right, he misses the bigger picture, and so does MDN.
F-CHINA.
Sorry that a civilized system does not work well in a totalitarian s-hole.
But idiots in the western world, busy lining their pockets with corruption dollars they cant get enough of, are missing the bigger picture. The reality is China is a honeytrap and they/china KNOWs it. Just the useful idiots here do not.
China LURES western companies with the prospect of a big market. But all they do when you get there is give you their cheap slave labor for a SHORT TIME. Enough time to steal all your IP and know how. Then they use china inc dollars to build a competitor, and the government then squeezes you out of that market by subsidy and by telling chinese people ‘if you use this foreign stuff you are not ‘patriotic’ enough’ which is code for you will be cancelled.
They are using our greedy lust for their market to pump and dump you. Suck your IP and know how, so we TRAIN our own competitors, and then dump us. China is a country version of a gold digging ho.
So this ALL comes to an end anyway. Apple and Musk are idiots for going there. China inc will just dump them when they’ve stolen enough IP and know how of how to compete, and then make the market inhospitable. It’s a honeytrap.
China is a scam. The only winning move is not to play the game.
We should only go to markets where people like us. India is way better, and frankly, it’s likely already a bigger market. Going to communist s-holes like china and vietnam is the height of stupidity.
So F-China and F-Durov and his crap software.
Zombie is 100% spot-on. Communists can NEVER be trusted; especially those that now are running the 3-letter agencies in the U.S.