> If I buy an iPhone, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that necessarily involves a relationship with the app store provider (ie. Apple)

This is only true because Apple dictates it to be so. The manufacturer of the device should not have a say in what I choose to do with a device I bought. I should be able to install software on a device without asking the manufacturer for permission. Why do they think they should have an opinion? After I purchase the device, it's mine, not theirs. I can throw it off a cliff if I want without asking for Apple's permission, why can't I install software on it?

> At that point, they _do_ want a relationship with some hardware manufacturer so that the third party app can be delivered to run on the hardware.

The device manufacturer should not need to be involved with a user's decision to install software. There should not be this requirement to have a relationship with them. We should never have allowed this idea to be normalized that the device manufacturer needs to be somehow have a say, let alone be the sole path to using the device.

Device manufacturers should sell devices and then get out of the way of what the user is doing with those devices.

I mostly agree, although if the manufacturer has a catalog of software (which they have managed to check for quality, classification, etc) that you can optionally use for installing software (which others can also choose to do, e.g. in the case of Android there is also F-Droid), but that you can also install anything that you want to do by yourself (including software that you wrote by yourself) without needing to be able (or willing) to contact (or have anything further to do with) the manufacturer (for any reason), then it can be helpful.

Also, if someone provides a service (e.g. Netflix) that some might want to use and some might not, then you have the option to use that service might be helpful but even that should not require any relationship with the manufacturer unless they are also providing the service. If the manufacturer is separate then they should not have anything to do with it (e.g. they should not add a button on the remote control specific for Netflix; if they have user programmable buttons that you can add your own labels, then it would be possible to use such a thing like that if the end user decides to install Netflix). (There are other problems with Netflix too but I am ignoring them for now because that would be a separate discussion.)

When I buy a computer, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that doesn't necessitate any relationship at all with any app store provider of any sort (ie. Apple).

(When I buy a pocket supercomputer, I have that same exact expectation. It's often left unsatisfied, but I still have it.)

The trouble is that we haven't figured out a trust model that works when we do exclude that relationship. The traditional Windows "run setup.exe" model is terrible for modern expectations of security. The alternatives available today are still very far behind the safety that ordinary users get today when they do enter a relationship with the manufacturer. Unless you're an expert and not a typical consumer.

So there can only be one extreme or the other extreme?

There's no possible world in which a gate can be installed in the wall of the garden?

I certainly want the gate. I just acknowledge that some kind of relationship with the hardware manufacturer for the benefit of the ordinary consumer is the best that the technology industry can offer right now.

Skill issue. Especially these days. What a cop out.

What does that gate look like in practice?

A sternly-written, notarized letter of indemnification? A bizarro-world sequence of events (like activating Developer Mode on Android)? A game of Galaga which, if played perfectly, unlocks the gate just as doing so unlocks the black car in Ridge Racer on the PSX?

I don't know. It's a gate that allows a person to leave the garden. It exists to be opened, and to be passed through, and also to be closed again -- or to be left open. :)

(The UAC prompt in Windows is also a gate, if existing work is to be studied.)

I know what a gate is for. My question was trying to get you to explain the middle ground between the extremes. That it is hard to visualize/imagine is kind of my point. The UAC prompt is an excellent example of a potential middle ground that is definitely a gate but a near useless one.

> I think it depends on the device. If I buy an iPhone, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that necessarily involves a relationship with the app store provider (ie. Apple)

I bought my Pixel from Google and don't want any relationship with Google whatsover. In fact, I wiped the stock OS and installed Graphene for this reason. My apps come from various sources, none of which is Google.

> If I buy an iPhone, I have the expectation of installing apps on it after purchase, and that necessarily involves a relationship with the app store provider (ie. Apple), not the store I bought the phone from.

That's because Apple supplies both the hardware and the software. Being a software supplier - the only such supplier - they need to keep being involved. This wouldn't be the case if third-party OSes existed for the iPhone - it doesn't need to be the case for M1/M2 MacBooks, for example, thanks to Asahi, or for any x86-based hardware.

They don't need to be involved. They force it on people and people are making a judgement call and a trade off that the upsides outweigh the downsides. That doesn't mean it's right or that people are happy about it or that it needs to happen. That would just be an appeal to the status quo.