As an iPhone user and an Android developer my lessons learnt, over the time, are:
1. Do not trust Google to vet the apps in the play store. They won't; they don't even try.
2. Those shiny Play Protect and whatnot postured around by Google are practically utter useless bs/bloat
3. Stick to famous, really famous apps from the Play Store - as in well known - e.g. Facebook, Netflix, Evernote etc (you will be tracked of course, you won't be hacked - you pay this price by using Googled Android anyway)
5. Do not, just do not download any other app on your phone (treat it as a no exception rule) unless you know what you are doing and possibly can look at the code - find something decent as an APK from GitHub et al.
6. Be very miserly when it comes to doling out permissions to apps. Your default should be "no".
7. Privacy (not really) and safety are just superficial polish by Google on Android OS - their core and only focus developing the OS is: making it as much of an ad platform as they can and on top of that how to get a bigger and bigger cut of the overall ad revenue with every release.
The part of pg's comments that relates to your comments is this part:
"Saying that an author lacks the authority to write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The question is whether the author is correct or not. If his lack of authority caused him to make mistakes, point those out. And if it didn't, it's not a problem."
But in general, Paul Graham isn't saying anything that is novel to this site's comment guidelines:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
"Don't be a dick, because plenty of people are smarter than you, and even people who are not smarter than you can come up with really good ideas and perspectives."
Why isn't it? Teenagers in India can have authority on a subject and more experience in certain areas than I do.
I'm not taking their post completely on faith. It matches up with my previous experiences, including the article we're currently talking about and related articles I've read.
Is there a specific issue you have with their point, or did you just want to point out that they're not special for making apps?
1. Do not trust Google to vet the apps in the play store. They won't; they don't even try.
2. Those shiny Play Protect and whatnot postured around by Google are practically utter useless bs/bloat
3. Stick to famous, really famous apps from the Play Store - as in well known - e.g. Facebook, Netflix, Evernote etc (you will be tracked of course, you won't be hacked - you pay this price by using Googled Android anyway)
4. If you couldn't find a well known app on Play Store - head to https://www.f-droid.org
5. Do not, just do not download any other app on your phone (treat it as a no exception rule) unless you know what you are doing and possibly can look at the code - find something decent as an APK from GitHub et al.
6. Be very miserly when it comes to doling out permissions to apps. Your default should be "no".
7. Privacy (not really) and safety are just superficial polish by Google on Android OS - their core and only focus developing the OS is: making it as much of an ad platform as they can and on top of that how to get a bigger and bigger cut of the overall ad revenue with every release.