How exactly? Please tell me which of the points I brought up were hyperbolic?
As best I can tell you are acknowledging that the store will fragment, so my first 3 points are valid. The next 4 are quality of life type things but all valid, reviews, updates, comparing, etc. As far as payment processors go how can limiting your exposure to a single processor, through Apple be bad? To the best of my knowledge Apple has never been hacked (knock on wood) while many, many major corporations have been, at this point we should all have credit monitoring for life. Lastly we have refunds and canceling, have you not experienced or at least read about users difficulties in canceling subscriptions?
No, I'm not inclined to let you off the hook for the insult. None of my examples were hyperbolic, they were a rather straight forward description of how I feel the iOS experience will suffer under alt-stores.
YMMV but I won't insult you over your opinions.
The reason I considered your post hyperbolic is that it's all moot if 99% of apps are still on Apple's App Store - which they will be (in my opinion).
The only fragmentation will involve big players like Epic and Amazon, who have the pull to entice people to sign up with specific storefronts. I wouldn't consider those companies a risk, as you're unlikely to get malware from them, plus it's in their interest / they have the resources to provide good customer service.
I highly doubt anyone else will eschew the App Store completely, as they can't afford to. It's like ignoring eBay and only selling on Etsy. You may get a bigger slice, but it's of a much smaller pie.
Allowing alternative marketplaces seems to benefit two groups:
- Big companies that resent Apple taking a 30% cut of purchases (e.g. eBooks or games), just because they own the platform. Such companies are perfectly capable of handling payment processing etc. in house, without needing to rely on Apple.
- Users who want to install software that for whatever reason Apple doesn't allow in their App Store (e.g. emulators, adult content etc.). In this scenario, users have a responsibility to verify the provenance of what they're installing - just as they do on their Mac or PC. I'd be happy to download e.g. RetroArch from a GitHub marketplace.
Most developers will be entirely happy to let Apple handle the business side of things, and consider it money well spent. OTOH, if another storefront emerges that develops a good name for quality and service, and charges developers less than Apple, then the competition will be good for developers and their customers. Sure, Apple will be forced to compete a bit harder, reducing fees or providing other perks, but why is that a problem?