"I mean, what's keeping anybody from getting their bitcoin wallet or miner on an app store?" That's the problem, nobody knows for sure if you can get any piece of software into the app store. I worked on an app that was in the app store for several years. During the last attempt to update, which did nothing but add new icons and startup screens for the new line of devices, the review team decided the app didn't do enough to warrant being it's own app and some more functionality should be added. I tried fighting it but eventually gave up. Now it still sits in the app store targeting iOS 7 and is still happily used, until someday Apple drops support for some deprecated bluetooth API.

Because Apple can ban apps from their store for any reason. Bitcoin wallets have been banned once if I remember correctly. Also, smart watch apps have also been banned on the Apple Store when Apple released their Apple Watch.

With all the positive sides of the App Store, this is really dangerous in terms of freedom.

The article is specifically talking about the 'next Netflix'. I'm talking here about the 'next Bitcoin'.

Perhaps the current one is fine. What about the one after that?

What about the 'Bitcoin' that launches in 20 years? Do we have any mass market free platforms left then?

Workstations may always exist - servers may always exist - but right now, the masses have general purpose computers on their desks, in their messenger bags. I want that to last.

Actually, for a long time, Apple did not allow Bitcoin wallets on the app store and repeatedly removed them. http://www.wired.com/2014/07/blockchain-back/

Some bitcoin users even smashed their iPhones in protest: http://www.wired.com/2014/02/watch-working-iphones/

I think it's more to do with the creation of cryptocurrencies in the first place, not just using them. A thin client with no level of user control (i.e. everything you do with it is managed on servers controlled by your provider) cannot be used to create something as low level as a cryptocurrency, or indeed any form of low level development.

Of course, this kind of thing is why we will always have some form of generic, user-managed-hardware market. If you take away the tools used to create the apps and services controlled by the gatekeepers, you won't have any apps and services. To put it another way, Apple doesn't want to be responsible for creating the millions of apps in their store, they just want to be the ones in control of those apps. The workstation is not going away.