Apple and Facebook
stratechery.com
stratechery.com
The unstated implication of this is that when required to receive consent from users, the entire ad-tech complex falls apart.
I think Apple is actually smart to do it this way rather than just getting rid of the IDFA altogether, but only because of the political/regulatory environment right now. Any pro-privacy move will be spun as being anticompetitive by the affected parties, until Apple actually wins in court in their first antitrust case. After that the gloves can come off.
Funny how privacy invasions are bad and everything should be done on device until Apple starts selling ads and then it’s ok somehow for them to use your behavior/purchase profile.
The entire point of consent is that your opinion doesn't really matter; mine does.
End users don’t even know what’s best for them. My family acts like I’m a conspiracy theorist when I talk about privacy. Yes, that’s anecdotal, but I’d bet most people would behave similarly. Consider the sheer amount of articles in popular media about Facebook’s privacy violations. Now consider how many people in your family either haven’t heard about them or simply don’t care.
Even other tech-savvy people don’t care. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “what do you have to hide?”
I was talking to some people about how food delivery apps/companies are basically stealing money from restaurants by using a smaller restaurant’s ad space to promote bigger clients. They just sort of glazed over at the details which in my mind are not terribly technical.
I don’t think Uber should go to jail over what they are doing, it’s more schemey than evil, but the average person is unable to care about technological details so we need better representation in the government against this sort of thing.
Many people still harbour the notion that Facebook is a social utility. It used to be.
That would be anticompetitive behaviour with iOS Appstore or perhaps with not allowing browser engines on iOS and honesty I think Apple would find it comfortable if it was for something like IDFA than those.
Unless I'm misunderstanding?
From my reading of the url below, Apple is mandating this consent popup on all apps that use any advertising (both 3p tracking but also serving their own 'walled garden' e.g. FB) - that is beyond basic contextual.
To me this seems to go way too far. For instance FB in the US would have to get consent to show any ads as they currently run for the vast majority of users. Plus if there is privacy a law like gdpr FB already gets opt-in in those countries this is just adding another opt-in on top.
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-...
They are also launching an IDFV that can be always accessed and is shared with the same family of apps, e.g. Facebook can track across Instagram without the popup.
under 'asking permission to track' this line "Displaying targeted advertisements in your app based on user data collected from apps and websites owned by other companies" seems like it would apply to a large amount of Facebook advertising.
They would have to get rid of a lot of targeting (and also the attribution parent mentioned) and maybe even more if using gdpr PII definition
"Sharing device location data or email lists with a data broker" the location data would apply to most SSPs/programmatic. Kind of a question of the comma too. If sharing any device location dat [period]. Or if the location data must go to a data broker to apply to that line. And depends a bit too if they use CCPA data broker definition (and ccpa definition of 'sale' is super broad any exchange of value). Even more if you count IPs as location.
Quoting Chamath on the rationale for the Facebook Platform is like quoting the current management of Boeing on how to build a plane. If you want the real story on the dynamics behind the Platform, and why it worked so incredibly well when it did, you’d have to talk to Dave Morin, but I’m not sure he’d like to revisit that period in his life. Dave’s open, humble approach (something I think he’d picked up at Apple) attracted the best and brightest companies and programmers to the platform, and gave them the confidence needed to invest in building a presence there. Eventually a bunch of people inside of Facebook got jealous of the attention he was getting and had him demoted.
Chamath takeover and his self-dealing (investing in platform companies while overseeing it? really?) was a large part of the Platform’s failure, not its success. People lost confidence, and confidence is the one thing that every platform — whether it’s a piece of software, or a country’s economy — really runs on. If you want to talk about platforms, and what they are, and what they aren’t, that’s really all it is. People who bring up a million other things and a random Bill Gates quote don’t know what they’re talking about.
Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment.
Facebook is pretty much the exact opposite of this, in every aspect of their business. Whether you’re a newspaper or an Instagram model or a developer, you’re never quite sure where you stand. While things built on top of Facebook might have large-scale near-term value, nobody’s planning their next decade on there (even if suspicious can’t-let-China-win government meddling and the Silicon Valley oligarchy keep them on top for that long).
one quip:
> Apple is strict and super-weird about some of their rules, but they’re consistent. And it’s in that consistency that they’ve been able to build a large, dominant platform. When people start to see cracks in that consistency — such as the recent Hey drama — both developers AND people within the company immediately freak out, and some statement is made (whether it’s what the developers want to hear is another matter). They’re also super consistent with most of their APIs and their timetables, which further encourages investment.
As someone who has dabbled in app store development from time to time, none of this seems to be true. Apple is inconsistent with application of their rules and their rules are also internally inconsistent from case to case, especially with regards to what apps are allowed on the platform.
But there is something interesting in there -- was it the developer experience that drew developers to their platform originally or something else? Not sure offhand.
I think we got rejected again a few updates later for the same reason, we talked to our Apple contact again, it was approved again.
I agree with the second half of the comment. Facebook has been capricious, and thus it's hard to trust building on top of them for the long term. But the first few paragraphs just seem like unsubstantiated gossip.
It's very easy to make confident pronouncements when they are basically unfalsifiable.
I’m really enjoying the book so far, and it seems to present a pretty unbiased view considering it was made with access to (and, by extension, some amount of blessing by) Facebook.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52032133-facebook
Did you work there?
From Chamath's wiki he invested in things like Palantir, some storage company, and Playdom which seems like the only company that he could have self dealing over...? Do you have other company examples? I am imagining being in charge of the social graph on fb platform could seem to be very tempting to then purchase/ invest in companies.
Do you know what Dave is doing currently? Slow capital doesn't seem to be a frequent updater on twitter. Before their most recent post, it was like a year ago they posted. And it looks like company related updates not Dave related.
Facebook had a developer forum in the early days which basically chronicled what was happening on their platform. pity they took it down...
The vast majority of the public do not care, at all, about the type of data tracking that gets HNers so up in arms. That may be a bit of hyperbole - they may care a teeny bit, but the second they have to do something that is even the slightest bit inconvenient in order to get more privacy ("Why do I have to log in here again?") they'll bail.
What Apple has done, though, is frame privacy-consciousness in terms of exclusivity and luxury. It's quite similar to how Tesla rebranded electric cars from dorky and stodgy to cool. Most people's experience with Apple's privacy-conscious features are Touch ID and Face ID. These felt really futuristic when they first came out. And the privacy messaging that Apple does is really great IMO: it's more along the lines of "With Google all your data is shared with crappy advertisers along with the rest of the unwashed masses. With Apple everything is safe and secure, and most importantly protected from their grubby little non-Jony Ive-approved hands."
This has real benefits to consumers (because the privacy advancements with Apple are not just marketing, they're real), but people should understand Apple is still based around exclusivity and luxury, and privacy is just a part of that.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...
"Some 81% of the public say that the potential risks they face because of data collection by companies outweigh the benefits, and 66% say the same about government data collection."
I only know two persons in real life (other than me) that care about data privacy and act on that. Of course if you ask most people they will say that yeah they care about privacy, but their actions tell a different story.
It can be as simple as showing them to open incognito for specific searches or topics, or to install a trusted tracker blocking extension like ublock origin and set it up for them.
Managing app location privileges is a big one too, iOS is really good about nagging for background location permissions and I appreciate that a lot, but a lot of people don't realize if you give Facebook or another app "while using", you can bet money it will use it whenever you open the app.
https://business.financialpost.com/technology/tim-hortons-ap... The Tim Hortons app logged this guy's location 2,700 times in 5 months. He didn't find out until the iOS 13 background location warning.
https://cdn.iphoneincanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ios...
People care, most of them just aren't as literate as the typical HN user so they either don't have a clue what's really happening, or simply throw their hands up in the air.
There's an entire class of problems you cannot solve through 'hygiene.' Equifax, for example, collected data on you without your consent, and got in trouble for unintentionally giving it away when they're supposed to be getting money in exchange.
Vast majority of people today know Google/Facebook is Big Brother and that knowledge doesn't matter to them nearly as much as some hoped.
This whole pandemic kind of proves that we haven't learned the real-life hygiene, after decades and decades of that being drilled into us, and real-life hygiene having actual life-or-death consequences.
Don't hold your breath about digital hygiene.
That's essentially Apple's marketing pitch on this subject, and this poll shows that there are a lot of people with whom it will resonate.
A billion people might use Facebook, but 1.3 billion use iMessage. I think this is a significant risk for services that don’t respect user privacy.
>19% of the public uses google and/or facebook services.
As an example of misunderstanding: Apple attempts to guess at pairs of phone numbers, email addresses, and names based on the data on the phone using analysis on the phone. So someone emailed a colleague a phone number (From: Bob, Body: "Hey, call me at 555-555-5555"). They get a call from 555-555-5555 and "Bob" comes up in the caller ID. It freaked them out, "I haven't added them to my contacts! Apple is reading my email!". This misunderstanding of what the systems are doing and how they're doing it creates an appearance of something "wrong" happening, even when it's not. The inability to distinguish these things leads to "they're all the same" and other perspectives that cause the non-technical people (especially, but even many technical people) to give up. They care, but they don't know how to overcome it (short of getting a dumb phone or a feature phone and moving off grid).
They likely see both as secure enough.
That was true maybe five years ago, but the HN meme is no longer true.
I interface with a lot of wetware for my job, and I've seen a shift. People have learned to care about privacy.
Some of the education has come from the mass media. Some of it from the creepiness of seeing a product you viewed on one web site follow you around to all the other web sites you visit. Some of it has come from the privacy alert boxes on Apple devices. Some of it from the thousands of TV commercials for privacy services.
The notion that "nobody cares" is simply not true anymore. If it was, then there wouldn't be a demonstrated market for all of the privacy tools out there.
> Notably, Facebook has declined to even show app install advertisements to the 30% of U.S. iPhone users that turned off their IDFA of their own accord — and now it is opt-in, instead of opt-out.
That is a massive proportion. Especially when you consider that the IFDA setting is buried three or four screens app in the settings app. 30 percent of users went way out of their way to turn tracking off. That tells me that a lot more users care about their privacy than we might assume
That's an interesting point. Without delving into the rest of your comment, I'd like to expand on that one bit and add that part and parcel with exclusivity and luxury, part of Apple's brand has been simplicity, quality, and joy (or pleasure in use).
Like many luxury brands ; ). Or high-end brands. It's a mix.
And I think that Apple is using it's privacy features to enhance the "quality" and "simple" part of their brand in addition to the other aspects you mentioned.
That's a hell of a claim. What's your source on this?
Unfortunately, as you touch on, privacy is yet another thing that only people with money get to have.
However, my foray into Android was not so rosy. Android felt like playing with Fire. It was scary not knowing what all was taking your data and then finding like half the apps I had downloaded had been stealing data in some form or another.
Moving back to ios was certainly a huge relief. The privacy aspects are just so much better.
It has become crystal clear that Google's interests lie in selling advertising beneath the surface vs Apple's interests selling hardware.
I was in the same boat. I was paying Google over $30/month just for e-mail. I didn't move for years because I feared it would be a hassle.
In the end, I was able to move everything over to Fastmail in half an afternoon. It really was worth it.
Thanks so much for this, I'm looking into it now!
I'd recommend setting up your own domain for email with Fastmail too since it makes it easy to move later. Fastmail also lets you create aliases for individual accounts, I've used that to group together less trustworthy services.
The biggest time sync was moving all existing accounts from Gmail over to Fastmail. Luckily I use a password manager so they were at least all in one place, but it still took about a day of tedious effort.
What's worse is a lot of sites are just broken. They don't let you change your email or account name, they make you contact support to do it, etc. If you're in California you can at least file a CCPA request to force them to delete your account.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-apps-flag...
- In China Apple allows iCloud infrastructure to be managed by Chinese companies (presumably so they can do bulk collection on user data/message backups).
- Apple removes the Taiwanese flag emoji from devices
- Apple removes the apps the CCP asks them to from the app store in China (notably this includes podcast apps with access to unapproved speech).
I wouldn't be surprised if there were more concessions.
I've written more generally about this here: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html
Apple is still the best when it comes to protecting their users in the west, but few western companies stand by their principles in the Chinese market. It's disappointing.
I agree. This absolutely fits the bill. For Apple, it’s either accept this arrangement or don’t do business in China, but it doesn’t change that it has a hollow ring, when Apple talks about privacy as a human right elsewhere.
Apple removes the Taiwanese flag emoji from devices
That’s a bad look, but it has nothing to do with privacy, and ultimately has no practical consequences for anybody.
Apple removes the apps the CCP asks them to from the app store in China (notably this includes podcast apps with access to unapproved speech).
Again, that has nothing to do with privacy. I don’t even see how it reflects poorly on Apple. What would you like Apple to do differently here? Should they martyr themselves in protest Chinese laws? What would that accomplish?
I wouldn't be surprised if there were more concessions.
Undoubtedly, if by concessions you mean complying with local laws in the countries where the do business.
Apple is still the best when it comes to protecting their users in the west
I’m sure Apple is also among the best when it comes to protecting their users in China. The problem is that Chinese laws don’t allow for the same level of protection as US laws.
I agree that it's not narrowly related to privacy, but it demonstrates that Apple is willing to comply with censorship demands from authoritarian governments. When/if China tries to take Taiwan the systemic suppression of Taiwan's existence and independence to the Chinese people may have played a part in what the public is willing to support. These kinds of things add up and have real effects.
> "What would you like Apple to do differently here? Should they martyr themselves in protest Chinese laws? What would that accomplish?"
I don't want to rehash my blog post linked above, but I'd argue Apple is responsible for the actions they take. They position themselves in the west as protectors of user privacy (refusing to decrypt iPhones, setting up systems where they can't be compelled to), yet in countries with real authoritarian governments where the people are at serious risk, where Uigers are put in camps and sterilized (https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c) Apple just 'follows local laws'. This is not a principled position.
What can they do? I'm not sure, but they can start with not being complicit in the oppressive laws of authoritarian countries. Maybe China has too much leverage with their manufacturing, but Apple has a strong brand and people want their devices. Maybe if they held up their principles then people in China would still try to smuggle the phones in?
Maybe it's too much to ask for western companies to support human rights everywhere even when there aren't government sanctions to force them, but I wish they did.
It's often in these countries that the people need protection the most.
If or when China tries to take Taiwan, it will solely be because the US (implicitly or explicitly) withdraws its guarantee that it will use the power of its military to keep Taiwan independent. How the public in the US or anywhere else feels about it, will have no bearing on it whatsoever.
yet in countries with real authoritarian governments where the people are at serious risk, where Uigers are put in camps and sterilized (https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c) Apple just 'follows local laws'. This is not a principled position.
This would be a good argument, if any action of Apple's directly facilitated the oppression of the Uiger or anybody else in China. Selling e.g. surveillance technology is not equivalent to banning apps or removing an Emoji flag.
What can they do? I'm not sure, but they can start with not being complicit in the oppressive laws of authoritarian countries.
But no matter what Apple decides to do, the outcome will be the same: People living in China will not have access to apps which are illegal in China.
Maybe it's too much to ask for western companies to support human rights everywhere even when there aren't government sanctions to force them, but I wish they did.
I think it's crucial to distinguish between those companies who are actively aiding authoritarian regimes by selling them instruments of oppression, and those who are simply not doing anything to thwart those regimes.
Public opinion is what translates into political support (or lack of support) for military action. I don't agree that these things are as independent as you suggest. In fact, the reason the CCP cares so much about suppressing speech and censoring their citizens is because they deeply understand this power.
> "This would be a good argument, if any action of Apple's directly facilitated the oppression of the Uiger or anybody else in China."
Isn't giving them iCloud access to messages effectively enabling the surveillance? This and the other smaller things suggest a precedent that Apple will do whatever is asked of them and figure out some way to rationalize it.
> "But no matter what Apple decides to do, the outcome will be the same: People living in China will not have access to apps which are illegal in China."
This flavor of argument leads to good people doing bad things and telling themselves it's okay. I think it's just a way to rationalize bad behavior (https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html).
The outcome doesn't have to be the same, just because you refuse to enable authoritarian governments doesn't mean you have to do nothing. Even if you do do nothing, at least you're not directly enabling the bad behavior.
> "I think it's crucial to distinguish between those companies who are actively aiding authoritarian regimes by selling them instruments of oppression, and those who are simply not doing anything to thwart those regimes."
I think this is a fair distinction and there is definitely a spectrum of wrongness, but I think companies often use this to rationalize bad behavior. Usually with similar "operating within the legal framework of the country" type of arguments. I don't find it very compelling. I'd also argue Apple specifically is enabling oppression of citizens by suppressing speech, and by handing over iCloud access to the CCP.
Sure, but let's not lose sight of the specifics of what we're discussing. Magnitude matters. The impact of removing the Taiwanese flag from the emoji keyboard is comparable to trying to the impact of using a paddle to change the course of a nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
Isn't giving them iCloud access to messages effectively enabling the surveillance? This and the other smaller things suggest a precedent that Apple will do whatever is asked of them and figure out some way to rationalize it.
No, I don't think it's the same. Not taking measures to prevent authorities from surveilling iPhone users is not the same as assisting with said surveillance. There would be no moral panic if say a US company started selling regular dumb phones in China, even though dumb phones are much easier to snoop on. It would be quite a different story though, if a US company started selling equipment that was specifically designed for large scale surveillance of phone traffic.
This flavor of argument leads to good people doing bad things and telling themselves it's okay. I think it's just a way to rationalize bad behavior (https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html). The outcome doesn't have to be the same, just because you refuse to enable authoritarian governments doesn't mean you have to do nothing. Even if you do do nothing, at least you're not directly enabling the bad behavior.
The inevitable conclusion of this line of reasoning is that no western company should do business in China.
I think this is a fair distinction and there is definitely a spectrum of wrongness, but I think companies often use this to rationalize bad behavior.
I don't think it's fair to label as bad behavior anything you are forced to do, and especially not anything you are forced to not do. Rationalizing bad behavior to me is about making excuses for things that in reality have entirely different motivations. Apple doesn't gain anything from doing any of the things they get criticized for in China.
I think participating in iCloud access is worse than just providing dumb phones and closer to assisting with surveillance. A similar example would be enabling encryption in the west, but breaking it to comply with local law in authoritarian countries where people need it most. The distinction that they're not the ones specifically doing the surveillance seems less important, they're complicit in it.
I agree the flag itself, specifically, is a small thing - but it still bothers me because of the precedent it sets.
> "The inevitable conclusion of this line of reasoning is that no western company should do business in China."
I struggle with this, maybe that's not so bad? I'd be happy if western companies didn't help to enable authoritarian countries whether in China, the Middle East, or elsewhere. Rule of law should be an important consideration when what you're doing can enable the oppression of a country's citizens.
> "Apple doesn't gain anything from doing any of the things they get criticized for in China. "
I think they do gain access to the Chinese market which is a lot - this is why I see them as making excuses for everything else they do that's required for this access.
On the plus side, at least the Chinese consumer knows what the CCP values are, so it's not like it comes as a surprise.
Safari on iOS is inferior to Firefox with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
Also Safari might have content blockers (inferior, but better than nothing), however iOS apps don't open links in Safari but in their own web view. This is mostly a cultural thing, but due to Android's tighter integration (eg back button) Android apps at least admit opening in the external browser as an option.
Example of apps that can open links on the external default browser on Android, but not on iOS: Facebook, Twitter, Gmail.
Android also supports web push notifications, making it possible to use some services from the browser, which is a far better sandbox. Firefox supports creating web app shortcuts, running full screen and with notifications, but with uBlock Origin powered content blocking in the background.
Why is this important? Have you seen the apps that share data with Facebook about you via their SDK? Go ahead, you might have a revelation about how privacy friendly your iOS device actually is:
https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity
I could avoid this crap on Android, but I can't on iOS unless I block the Facebook.com domain entirely at the DNS level, which I did, but it's not very practical if I'd need Facebook too.
iOS has some pretty cool privacy features, but it is also defective by design and this keeps it from being a good option for protecting the privacy of power users.
There are two types of web views in IOS. One is an out of process web view where the app has very little visibility in what you do while you are using it. This view does support installed content blockers. Feedly for instance supports this web view. The other is an in process web view where the app has far more control and visibility. But doesn’t support content blockers. I use the Facebook website for just that reason instead of the app.
My problems with Android are largely around all the things you can't do without turning on web and location tracking. The most egregious of these is probably the aparant inability to set your home address in the google map app. There is no reason it can't store this as some kind of favourite. It is ridiculous, and indicative of an approach designed to maximise the amount of information you give up to them.
It's the same reason I don't want to switch from Windows to MacOS, I refuse to support a platform where one company is "the Judge, Jury and Executioner".
As a mobile dev, it is also quite irritating that if you wish to develop for iOS, you must use an Mac, but if you wish to develop for Android, you can use any device you want. Oh how I would love for Apple to feel caged by their own walls, e.g. make Android Studios not available for MacOs until XCode is available for Windows and Linux.
Apple regards their platform as an advantage for developers. You are free to disagree and choose another platform if you like.
But the idea that you would expect Apple not to use it’s own platform to develop its tools makes no sense.
You would be expecting them to give up their primary advantage.
And for what? To satisfy people who don’t want to buy their products?
Are you saying you saw a notable difference in the ads you were shown after switching back to iOS?
Also, people tend to get downvoted for starting or ending comments with "lol," as it shows a basic lack of respect for other people on HN.
I'm doing that now because I've been downvoted. I didn't do that with my initial question which was the one that was downvoted.
As long as you're not in China that is:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/apple-privacy...
But after Apple declined to implement 16 Web APIs in Safari due to privacy concerns, she bough an iPhone.
She's 8.
Remember that anti-competitive agreement between the the big tech companies to not compete with each other for employees aka fucking illegal? Remember how many people went to prison for that? Right, 0. These companies are all fine dining together and high fiving each other for their agreement to not compete with one another all the way to the bank.
When a small competitor arises, they just throw a few billion to squash them aka acquire and laugh all the way to the bank some more.
I wouldn't be surprised if this blog is going to get a corporate sponsor sometime soon - it's been such a good boy, making pretend these companies are actually competing.
The author of this blog is at his best when he's going a mile wide and an inch deep on high-concept subjects like self driving cars and Amazon taking over retail. When he tries to go deep on specific topics, his lack of context often leads him to specious and, frankly, silly conclusions.
Obviously like all models, these approximate reality.
I would think so. Of course, it might not be as we know it. However, a world where content works across devices. APIs are standardized. Responsive to multiple sizes. Low barrier to entry and access. It seems to me that Web is the future. Note I say Web, and not browser. An integrated experience built on the web - like Firefox OS might be the open and free platform we need to build our own great experiences. Definitely something worth exploring.
In the past year or so I’ve become a bit disillusioned and have switched back to mostly native apps for things from email to music. I have fiber internet but even then load/buffer times on my native apps are non existent. The ui-s are way snappier and I am happy with the switch.
If webapps do make a comeback I agree - they will have to be quite different.
Edit: Keep in mind that I’m not saying web apps will disappear. Just that they might not have any more mainstream relevance than they have today
I have no idea how much of that video is real, but I think if the AR hardware is possible it's likely the next computing platform UI after mobile device displays.
Apple has been laying the platform groundwork for this for a while. If anyone can pull it off, I suspect it would be them.
I don't think the web will be able to compete with that.
Why is that interesting and at what point do you notice that every move these companies make, is anti-human?
Take Apple: their entire business model is reliant upon the government never waking up to enforcing open standards and protocols to ensure consumers get hardware-agnostic, operating system-agnostic, service-provider agnostic, company-agnostic tools and services, which is what everyone would agree we want, except the sociopaths who value profit over humanity and run these corporations.
That's what got everyone excited about Bitcoin for a hot second. That it finally escapes the walled gardens all technology is living under. Instead of fixing the walled gardens, these delusional fools think they can technology their way out of corporations owning all key infrastructure. Jesus Christ.
Back to Apple.
Apple's entire business strategy is creating a walled garden because it benefits them, at the expense of everyone else. They give consumers crumbs and call it 'the biggest release ever'.
Facebook's entire business strategy is being a surveillance network, which is again, entirely reliant upon the government never waking up to how creepy, immoral and counter-productive it is on so many levels! There are enough sociopaths in government who think oh good, a surveillance tool, we can make use of it! Good luck having Facebook regulated when we live in a corporatocracy folks!
Everything these big companies do is against the interests of human beings. People are just too dumb to see it because if you drip-feed them 'new emojis' and 'you can have a weather widget on your screen in 2020', they don't realize they are getting fucked!
Sorry, carry on with your 'analysis' of what these sociopaths are up to and pretending you have valuable insight, when the only sane insight to be had is 'these fuckers are out of control'.
Hyperbole if I've ever read it. "every move"? Is investing in clean energy to power all of their data centers anti-human as Apple has done? Is creating a $100,000,000 education fund for under-represented app developers anti-human? Is encrypting devices by default to protect privacy anti-human?
Now, as you can see I'm a bit of an Apple apologist and of course all of these are good PR moves. But every corporation is by definition just a "group of humans working together for profit." They will do good things for profit and they will do bad things for profit. But a group of humans working together for profit does not make every move they do "anti-human."
Consider a $100,000,000 education fund for app developers. Certainly, app development can be a gateway for some people, but once they develop apps, where do they go if not a market place that Apple tightly controls? They are a machine funding the creation of new cogs in this scenario.
If your overlords buy you an opulent dinner and provide you with a warm bed, it doesn't mean you are free.
Freedom can be a vague and high-minded ideal that obviously needs to be balanced with communal concerns, but I agree with the parent poster's overall disgust. It feels that a company like Apple is so big that they are beyond any societal control or regulation, and that is unacceptable. To hear their minions rush to their defense as if their interests are somehow aligned (they're not) is too much to handle sometimes. It's tiring.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that the App Store needs reform. Perhaps there should be some regulation, that's above my pay grade. Your level of disgust also to me feels like hyperbole.
0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/236031/market-share-of-i...
So where should I go from Apple if not into the waiting arms of Google/Android? Is that better?
This isn't actually a conversation specifically about Apple if you recall. It is a conversation about all such companies. And yes, your defense of Apple is a little cringe-y. Why do you need to defend such a behemoth in a conversation that is decidedly not dedicated to them? Per the parent comment--Why does HN obsess over the actions of these companies that are categorically not for anyone's benefit other than their own? That was the original question.
I honestly am asking you to reflect on it. Why do you care? What's it to you?
I care because I think there is a lot of misdirected energy and anger. In a world with racial injustice, starvation, poverty, etc. you choose this topic to be outraged about?
Well you have a right to your outrage. It’s good some people are outraged because it keeps them on their toes. But at the same time I have a right to say I think your dialogue and vitriol is out-of-line with the reality of the situation, and hyperbolic at best. I am a counter-balance to your outrage and that’s why I care.
I'll quote it...
> "There are certainly shades of gray, but if I can speak on behalf of the post you are responding to, it seems their argument would be that it is a net negative, and that the "Good PR humanity" is relatively shallow in the end. Consider a $100,000,000 education fund for app developers. Certainly, app development can be a gateway for some people, but once they develop apps, where do they go if not a market place that Apple tightly controls? They are a machine funding the creation of new cogs in this scenario.If your overlords buy you an opulent dinner and provide you with a warm bed, it doesn't mean you are free.Freedom can be a vague and high-minded ideal that obviously needs to be balanced with communal concerns, but I agree with the parent poster's overall disgust. It feels that a company like Apple is so big that they are beyond any societal control or regulation, and that is unacceptable. To hear their minions rush to their defense as if their interests are somehow aligned (they're not) is too much to handle sometimes. It's tiring."
Honestly, I use so much language to balance and mitigate my argument that it's overly verbose.
> "There are shades of gray", "relatively shallow", "Certainly, app development can be a gateway for some people...", Freedom can be high-minded and needs to be balanced,".
Is it possible to make this point passively enough to satisfy your requirements?
I'll also admit that the parent comment was a bit more extreme in it's tone. And I'll admit there are many injustices in the world that go beyond tech. But I think the underlying issue of acquiring and maintaining freedom of all kinds is valid.
It's like saying, "With racial inequality being what it is, how can you spend your time belaboring a point about campaign finance reform?" The answer is simple: Because one form of freedom (in this case, governmental representation) facilitates those adjacent freedoms (racial equality). The importance of one doesn't invalidate the importance of the other.
I'm like, not that outraged. But I am like, casually disgusted by people who seem to have allowed huge corporations to become so apart of themselves that they lose the ability to see some obvious flaws.
I love my iPhone. Apple is far from the worst of it. But there are some very disturbing trends in tech and the world that warrant our skepticism and yes, our disgust. That it is treated as normal is part of the problem.
Well we can agree on that. I am basically speaking against the reductive argument “big corporation = bad.“
Apple does good things and Apple does bad things. On balance I think they do more good than bad. We can have a debate about that. But we can’t debate if the opposition just thinks big corporation = bad and no freedom. I chose Apple because that is the company that started this discussion.
Did you read this and the only conclusion you came away with, is big corporation = bad?
Feel free to address what's actually been said, rather presenting a straw man.
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Let me clarify why big corporation = bad is a straw man because I suspect some uneducated people may take your position seriously.
Big corporation = bad is in fact a truism, if the government that's supposed to regulate corporations, is not doing their job. This is political science 101.
There are people far more educated and likely smarter than you and I who don't consider USA a functioning democracy. Noam Chomsky considers USA a plutocracy. Have you studied this matter and have rebuttals to numerous arguments that he has presented to support his case?
> There are people far more educated and likely smarter than you and I who don't consider USA a functioning democracy.
You may have some good points, but your level of vitriol and overall tone really detracts from them. From the beginning where I pointed out your hyperbole, to your most recent comment where you're effectively calling people dumb and uneducated. If I need political science 101, then you need debate 101.
What a phenomenal way to shut down conversation.
"Why do you care?" is such a spineless response. It could be used in any conversation regarding any topic for an easy out.
Either engage with the conversation or don't.
In this case it is the conversation. "Why do we defend and obsess over 3rd party business interests of corporate giants?" is the topic we are discussing. Keep up.
It is only fair that you look at the iOS U.S. marketshare, and what would you know, they have over 50% ;)
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/north-amer...
"Some courts have stated that it is possible for a defendant to possess monopoly power with a market share of less than fifty percent.(29) These courts provide for the possibility of establishing monopoly power through non-market-share evidence, such as direct evidence of an ability profitably to raise price or exclude competitors. The Department is not aware, however, of any court that has found that a defendant possessed monopoly power when its market share was less than fifty percent.(30) Thus, as a practical matter, a market share of greater than fifty percent has been necessary for courts to find the existence of monopoly power.(31)"
https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
You used a lot of words to basically say nothing meaningful and show that you actually don't understand these companies or their customers.
If the government mandates protocol X, then protocol X is no longer open.
The body directing the development of protocol X becomes an extended part of the government (or simply a direct part), and is subject to an entirely different level of political influence.
> People are just too dumb to see it...
I honestly don't believe you can share, understand, or speak for the interests of people you hold in contempt. The thing is, they aren't dumb, no more so than you, I or anyone else. You may not understand their perspective, but they have one whether you can see it or not.
The problem always seems to be the question, "How do you get a decentralized system to a reach critical mass of mainstream usage?"
Consider the concept of a labor union. The word "union" implies a unification, formalization, and to some extent a centralization of workers around an administrative structure that is not the business that employs them. I think many people would agree that such a union is a necessary counter force if you want to achieve progressive workplace reforms.
Technology to free us from the walled garden always pursues decentralization as a means to evade control. But there must be some unified, centralized force promoting it early on.
The downside to this is that it creates a large attack surface vulnerable to legal threat and infiltration of competing interests. However, we can't replace the global internet with enmeshed home networks. We can't replace fiber with dreams, or iphones with raspberry pis.
It would be great if the governments represented the people, and did not act like some self-interested third party so much of the time. Perhaps, the government--our government--would be an appropriate body to administer a formative revolution. But since we know that they like to spy, control, and arbitrarily regulate, it forces the question of how to form a dedicated central entity powerful enough to promote the changes we want to see, but resistant to the trappings of other corporations and government.
It's a deep question that arises when you pursue freedom of any kind.