This has everything to do with centralization precisely because decentralization makes it easier to break the law. I thought it went without saying when discussing bypassing censorship in China, but to be clear I am actively advocating for the ability for end users to more easily defy the law in the setting of software performing as expected that they choose to utilize on their own devices.

>(Every (even decentralised) shops need to comply with local laws.*

1: "need" and 2: LOCAL laws. Which in the case of shops based outside of a jurisdiction means only their own jurisdiction, not anyone else's. Apple is a multinational, so it cannot avoid this. But other shops absolutely could, just as they do in the PC market right now.

And again, this applies to every polity, not just China. I (and probably most of Americans on HN) am absolutely a computer law breaker. I have ripped my own DVDs and Blu-rays, which has put me in direct violation of the DMCA. I have utilized open source software like x264 (or, back in the day, gif encoders) without negotiating or paying a license fee, which puts me in violation of software patents.

In the real world, entities like RIAA and the MPAA have had to play whack-a-mole and could do nothing about places based in jurisdictions where evil laws like patenting of ideas/math are not in place, and thus there was freedom to go around them and change the course of public expectations beyond those with central power, which in turn affects the law too (which is an organic entity). If we instead imagine an alternate world where in the 90s Microsoft and Apple and so forth had iOS level hardware full stack control and central stores, would we ever have had anything like DeCSS? Hell, would open source platforms have been possible at all? Law and morality are not the same thing, not even in the most egalitarian and democratic countries. There needs to be some give at the edges for experimentation and evolution over time.