As a (happy) Jolla/Sailfish user, and a strong believer in the benefits of a varied OS ecosystem, I am quite concerned about banks, transport systems and governments pushing "apps" as the preferred way of interacting with their services. This has led to a "duoculture", only one step removed from a monoculture, in smartphone OSs, with many people rejecting alternatives such as Sailfish because their bank / railway / taxi / government doesn't offer a native "app" for it. Apple and Google really have an ultra-privileged position here, with all these organisations effectively forcing their customers/citizens to buy one of their devices. This not only stifles competition and innovation - it also magnifies the severity of any OS level vulnerability, as it will affect a much larger segment of the population in a "duoculture" than it would in a "multiculture" (think pandemics vs. genetic diversity). It also puts increasing pressure on people to give up their privacy and their data to corporations which often have a rather flaky track record on keeping it safe. This story seems to confirm some of those fears, and makes me feel a little less frustrated about having to wrestle with my bank's desktop website UI on my Jolla.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
