A Subtle Discomfort
There is something about app stores that has never quite sat right with me. This is not a rejection of their usefulness. They are undeniably convenient, and in many cases they make installing software easier, safer, and more consistent. I use them myself.
And yet, over time, a quiet discomfort has surfaced.
It is not the obvious things that bother me. It is not the interface, or the concept of centralised updates, or even the idea of curated software in principle. The unease comes from something more subtle. A feeling that, somewhere along the way, installing software stopped being a deliberate act and became a passive one.
App stores feel less like places you go with a clear intention, and more like environments you exist within. Software presents itself whether you asked for it or not. Recommendations, rankings, and featured listings gently shift the focus away from what you set out to do, and toward what is being offered to you.
This raises a simple but important question. When installing something becomes effortless and ever present, what happens to the intentionality that once framed the act of choosing what we allow onto our machines, and by extension, into our lives?
Installing Software Used to Be an Intentional Act
There was a time when installing software required a clear decision. You did not install things casually or by accident. You identified a need or a curiosity, and then you went looking for something specific to address it.
This process involved effort. You might have purchased software on physical media, or downloaded it from a particular website after some consideration. Installation often took time. Sometimes it failed. Sometimes it conflicted with other software. None of this was especially elegant, but it created a natural pause between wanting something and acting on that desire.
That pause mattered.
It acted as a filter. You were less likely to install something unless you genuinely intended to use it. Software entered your system because you made room for it, both practically and mentally. The act of installation carried a sense of commitment.
In that context, software felt more like a tool than a presence. It existed to serve a specific purpose, and once that purpose was fulfilled, the relationship often ended. There was no expectation of ongoing engagement beyond the task at hand.
What has been lost is not simply inconvenience, but deliberation. Installing software used to be an extension of intentional choice. It reflected a moment where you decided what you needed, and acted accordingly.
App Stores and the Shift to Ambient Consumption
App stores changed more than the mechanics of installing software. They changed the context in which discovery happens. Searching for a specific solution has gradually been replaced by browsing within a curated environment.
Instead of seeking out software to meet an identified need, users are encouraged to explore what is available. Lists of popular apps, featured selections, recommendations, and rankings all invite a different mode of engagement. Software becomes something you encounter rather than something you deliberately seek.
This shift may seem minor, but its effects are significant. Browsing encourages openness, distraction, and impulse. Searching encourages focus, intention, and clarity. When browsing becomes the default, the question subtly changes from “What do I need?” to “What is being presented to me?”
Over time, this alters the relationship between the user and their tools. Installing software begins to resemble consumption rather than selection. The act becomes lighter, quicker, and less considered. The barrier to entry is lowered, but so is the sense of purpose.
In this environment, software no longer waits to be chosen. It competes for attention. Visibility becomes as important as usefulness, and sometimes more so. What rises to the surface is not always what is most appropriate, but what is most effectively positioned.
This is the point at which installation stops feeling like a conscious decision and starts to feel like a background activity. Something that happens alongside everything else, rather than as a result of a clear intention.
Curation Is Not Neutral
App stores often present themselves as neutral organisers. They appear to simply sort, categorise, and make software easier to find. In practice, curation is never passive. Decisions are being made about what is visible, what is promoted, and what is quietly pushed to the margins.
When software discovery is centralised, visibility becomes a form of power. Apps that align with the priorities of the platform are more likely to be surfaced. Those that do not may still exist, but they become harder to encounter without already knowing what you are looking for.
This has subtle but far reaching consequences. Software that is useful, thoughtful, or deliberately minimal does not always thrive in environments that reward engagement, monetisation, or scale. Meanwhile, applications designed to maximise retention or data collection are often better suited to the metrics that determine prominence.
The result is not overt censorship, but quiet shaping. Users are not told what they cannot install. Instead, they are guided toward what is most visible, most approved, or most easily integrated into the platform’s broader ecosystem.
Over time, this shapes expectations. Certain kinds of software begin to feel normal, while others feel obscure or fringe. The app store does not simply reflect demand. It actively participates in creating it.
From Tools to Ongoing Relationships
Installing software used to be a largely finite transaction. You acquired a tool, used it for a specific purpose, and moved on when that purpose was fulfilled. The relationship was clear and limited.
Many modern apps operate differently. Installation is no longer the end of the exchange, but the beginning of an ongoing relationship. Even software that appears simple often arrives with expectations attached. Requests for permissions, invitations to create accounts, prompts to enable notifications, and background activity are now common.
This creates a shift in assumptions. Software does not simply wait to be used. It checks in. It reminds. It nudges. It asks for continued attention, even when its original value has already been extracted.
What is striking is that this expectation often persists regardless of relevance. An app does not need to remain useful in order to remain present. Even when it no longer serves a meaningful purpose, it may still request updates, data, or engagement.
This changes how software feels. It stops being a passive tool and starts to resemble a claimant on attention. The boundary between use and obligation becomes blurred. What was once an object you reached for now feels like something that reaches back.
Convenience as a Mask
The appeal of app stores is not imagined. They genuinely reduce friction. They simplify updates, improve security in many cases, and make software installation accessible to people who would otherwise find it intimidating. These benefits are real, and it would be dishonest to ignore them.
However, convenience also reshapes behaviour.
When installing software becomes effortless, deliberation quietly fades. The cost of trying something drops so low that there is little reason to pause. Installing an app feels reversible and inconsequential, even when it is not.
Over time, this changes how refusal is experienced. Saying no begins to feel like unnecessary friction rather than an active choice. Declining permissions, disabling notifications, or avoiding suggested installs can start to feel like resisting the system rather than simply exercising agency.
Convenience smooths over these tensions. It presents itself as kindness, while quietly encouraging compliance. The easier something is to accept, the more unusual it feels to decline it.
In this way, convenience does not remove pressure. It relocates it. The effort is no longer in installing software, but in maintaining boundaries around it.
Why Some Platforms Feel Less Invasive
Not all app stores provoke the same level of discomfort. In some ecosystems, they function as optional conveniences rather than unavoidable gateways. This difference is not primarily technical. It is cultural.
On most Linux distributions, app stores exist alongside many other accepted ways of installing software. Package managers, direct downloads, source builds, and repositories all coexist. The presence of an app store does not imply that software outside of it is unsafe or unofficial by default. Users are still assumed to have agency, curiosity, and responsibility.
In this context, the app store feels like a shortcut rather than a rulebook. It offers convenience without defining legitimacy. If you know what you want and prefer another route, the system does not quietly punish you for that choice.
By contrast, platforms such as Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android increasingly frame their app stores as the correct and responsible way to install software. While alternatives may still exist in some cases, they are often discouraged through warnings, additional friction, or limited functionality. Installing software outside of the approved channel is subtly framed as risky, outdated, or irresponsible.
On mobile platforms in particular, the app store is not just preferred, but enforced. Discovery, installation, updates, and monetisation are tightly bound to a single gatekeeper. This centralisation gives the platform significant influence over what software is visible, viable, and economically sustainable.
The result is a clear shift in assumption. On Linux, the app store supports agency. On more tightly controlled platforms, it replaces it. The difference is not about security or ease of use alone, but about who is ultimately trusted to decide what belongs on a user’s device.
What’s Really Being Eroded
The core issue with app stores is not the loss of freedom to install software. In most cases, that freedom still exists in some form. What has changed is more subtle, and more consequential.
What is being eroded is intentionality.
When discovery is managed, when installation is effortless, and when software assumes an ongoing relationship by default, the space for deliberate choice narrows. Decisions happen faster, with less reflection. Over time, this reshapes how users relate to their devices.
There is also a quieter loss of ownership over desire. When needs are anticipated and presented in advance, it becomes harder to tell whether an action originated from a genuine requirement or from exposure. The line between choosing and being guided begins to blur.
This erosion does not announce itself as restriction. It arrives as convenience, safety, and efficiency. Nothing is taken away outright. Instead, the conditions that once encouraged pause, discernment, and commitment slowly dissolve.
The result is a digital environment where fewer choices feel consciously made, even though options appear abundant. Software multiplies, but clarity diminishes. The system becomes rich in possibility and poor in meaning.
Not Anti Progress, Pro Agency
This is not an argument against app stores as a concept. They solve real problems and, when used thoughtfully, can genuinely improve the experience of managing software. The issue is not their existence, but the role they have come to play.
When a single channel shapes discovery, defines legitimacy, and normalises ongoing extraction of attention, it stops being a neutral convenience and starts to influence behaviour. What is lost in the process is not access, but agency.
Questioning this shift is not a rejection of progress. It is a refusal to treat all change as inherently positive. Progress that reduces friction but erodes intentionality comes with costs that are easy to overlook precisely because they arrive quietly.
Tools should serve clear purposes. They should enter our systems because we invite them in, not because they are placed in our path often enough to feel inevitable. Reclaiming that distinction matters.
Being more intentional about what we install is a small act, but it reflects a larger stance. One that values conscious choice over managed exposure, and agency over convenience.
another fascinating article, thank you.
Adopting Mint OS (my first experience using Linux) on my preferred laptop last year felt like a liberation. Recognise what you describe regarding the trade-off (and benefits!) of friction for intentionality, over convenience and passive consumption.
Extracting myself from the Apple/Google/Amazon/et al ecosystems has taken much time and effort – having once been an eager early adopter of all things google (I had one of the first year’s invite-only gmail accounts, for instance) and apple, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that it did to discover how deeply they had become embedded in my day-to-day functioning.
Still shaking-off the last remnants, like something unpleasant that has been stepped in, and waiting for the next opportunity I have to shake of that last bit of icloud and google storage.
I’m glad to hear you have found some liberation through Linux! I haven’t yet tried Mint myself, but I do use Linux for various things, including hosting my own webserver. The difference in personal agency is honestly remarkable once you’ve experienced it.
I also think your early enthusiasm for Google and Apple makes total sense, because back then they genuinely were exciting and genuinely useful breakthroughs, not the deeply embedded extraction machines they later evolved into. The problem is not people embracing good tools when they arrive. It is the slow “creep” that happens once a company gets a foot in the door and convenience quietly turns into dependency.