As a consumer, I only buy from the App Store when it's absolutely required.
I vastly prefer to live outside the App store and the Sandbox. I haven't gotten malware in years, and I don't particularly expect I'll get it in years to come; if I do, it'll probably be a zero-day in Flash, OpenSSH or HTML5.
So, anecdotally, as one consumer, if you have a program in the Mac App Store, I really won't be buying it unless its an OS upgrade or I really want it.
MAS has a killer feature (as with iOS App Store) - one purchase for multiple users or machines with one credential set to manage purchase and upgrade.
Handling multiple software instances and licenses is a HUGE pain point for the customer - it gets exponential if you're forced to manage licenses across machines and/or users (thus site-licenses for businesses). It is tough enough even for a power user with license management software, but literally a nightmare for the un-initiated.
I'd argue the exact opposite. Case in point #1: I bought a license for Sublime Text 2 from the developer. I'm free to use it on all of my Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. (Meaning, when I'm forced to use Windows, I actually have a decent text editor I like!)
Case in point #2: I'm trying to buy 15 copies of OS X 10.8 for our older (>1 month old) Macs. I have two options: create 15 Apple IDs, or buy 20 Volume Licenses from Apple, 5 of which I will never need as we don't buy used computers.
Don't get me wrong; I love that I paid for Aperture and can effortlessly install it on multiple systems. (Photoshop, on the other hand...) But it's not everything to everyone.
I don't understand why this [1] doesn't work for you - I was able to put exactly 12 licenses in my cart. According to this page [2], the process is to download the installer once and distribute manually.
It should be obvious, but to make it even clearer.
- Centralization of control. Apple has frequently jacked around with iOS programs being allowed/disallowed; why should we let some central authority control what we have on our computing devices?
- Centralization of malware. Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses.
- Limitations. The more interesting your app, the more places it needs to touch. A "fun" limitation I noticed this morning is that Mail.app's sandbox poses significant limitations to GPGMail. That's not good- hopefully I can continue to have encrypted email at will with Mail.app. Fortunately, the open source world provides encrypting email clients.
- Should Apple know what I have installed? App stores give them that knowledge. Is there a right that App stores take away?
Obviously, I have no great faith in Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, or the other centralization advocates. I don't see that I should.
"It should be obvious", followed by a semi-paranoid rant just makes you sound like a wild-eyed conspiracy nut. "Monocultures are subject to waves of viruses." Whoo! Actual waves! That is scary. And buying from the App Store lets Apple know what you have bought. I never thought of that, that is really scary too. But the following non-sequitor just baffles me.
I think he was driving at the idea that people who make malware tend to go for larger ecosystems.
The reality is that everything you do on a network involves some form of risk. You can mitigate these risks by performing tasks in a standardized way using only approved software, but a packaged Zero-Day that's tuned for your environment will generally succeed.
Getting a Kaspersky Payload isn't that hard to find any more; preventing hackers from knowing what anti-virus you're running is your responsibility.
In short, everything is about risk mitigation. Running the same software as everyone else exposes you to the same risk.
By the way, this point is tangential to the larger point at hand which is: Apple doesn't care about its developers.
I don't see how any of what you said is relevant. The distribution mechanism (Mac App Store) has absolutely nothing to do with everyone running the same software. And in fact the required sandboxing (one of the alleged problems with the Mac App Store) goes a long way to mitigate a lot of risks in remote exploits.
If the Mac App Store had a grand total of 5 apps then I could see where you're coming from, but it launched with over a thousand apps and it's had 1.5 years since then to acquire many more. There's no monoculture.
Do you have any evidence for your claim that malware would be worse due to centralization?
Apple has a very good record on malware via both the mac and iOS app store, best I can tell.
I completely get why a dev would hate the app store, but form an average consumer standpoint - it seems brilliant. Unless you are scared of Apple finding out that you installed "Evernote" or "Twitter". OMG!
I vastly prefer to live outside the App store and the Sandbox. I haven't gotten malware in years, and I don't particularly expect I'll get it in years to come; if I do, it'll probably be a zero-day in Flash, OpenSSH or HTML5.
So, anecdotally, as one consumer, if you have a program in the Mac App Store, I really won't be buying it unless its an OS upgrade or I really want it.