How is this supporting open platform? Tinder is still closed platform and available on playstore, Can I use premium without paying Tinder tax? No. Now you need to send in your credit card info to Tinder instead of better privacy protection from Playstore.

If Tinder collects the payment, you're paying Tinder.

If Google or Apple collect the payment, you're paying Google or Apple, they take a cut, then a portion goes to Tinder.

Guess which one results in Tinder raising their prices?

You could argue that the app stores aren't a charity and don't operate for free - that they need money to exist. I'd argue that the app store model itself doesn't need to exist and that it's a form of greedy rent-seeking and power thirst. Besides, neither Apple nor Google are hurting from their phone monopoly.

If AppStore model isn’t needed why is Tinder available on AppStore. They could have gone side load model. But didn’t. This just shows why AppStore is relevant.

"Side loading" is a second class citizen reserved for criminals and nerds.

A true first class distribution model would allow you to install directly from the web without messing with settings. Perhaps even running as WASM seamlessly out of the box, never once switching contexts into a storefront.

If we'd done it this way from the beginning we'd have true cross-platform apps written in WASM with full native experiences. Microsoft still might have their phone, too. But things didn't evolve that way, sadly... Apple and Google wanted their control and walled gardens.

Of course, to reach true parity now we'd have to remove the app store to let web distribution catch up in the minds of consumers. But that will never happen unless we can lobby for antitrust breakups of these titans.

Isn't that a Progressive Web App?

Except they didn't lower their prices in this case.

“Tinder tax?” If I buy a TV, am I paying a Sony tax?

Arguably, if you connect a PS4 to that TV you are paying the Sony tax on every game you purchase, which would be a closer analogy. Sony selling the TV is identical to Google selling a Nexus phone, whereas when Sony sells a Playstation they are also selling a platform.

Edit: just reread grandparent, the tinder tax doesn't make sense and your example was valid. Apparently I haven't had enough coffee to read properly yet.

That’s not a Tinder tax.

I don't see how this supports any decentralization or openness for actual users.

Like the old discussion about freedom of speech.

That the robber baron who owns the papers can say what he wants doesn't mean much to the man who is a black list for the rest of his life.

Freedom of speech is not freedom of consequences indeed.

I would rather see the users turning away from app stores and into the web. The mobile app companies are just going to revolt, apple will cut them some slack, and they ll go back to sleeping with the devil

Yep, people compare app stores with the wild west of old windows applications and ask how could we possibly go back.

The biggest improvement on the smartphones in this regard is not the app stores themself, it's the very tight sandboxing of apps that is the real enabler of the ecosystem. With such a good sandbox we could be installing apps from anywhere on the web as we did on windows before but at the same time not risk our whole system in the process as we did before.

We already have the browser. It needs relatively few mobile extensions to support the same experience as 99% of non-gaming apps.

As a user I prefer Apple's advertising IDs to the web's crazy canvas-antialiasing-fingerprinting and whatever.