Comment by buran77 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by buran77 | Hacker News Reader

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I don't like that Apple has this tight-fisted control over the app store but I'd hate it even more if websites got the same freedoms as apps. For better or worse there is some sort of diligence being done when an app is accepted in the app store and there is a chance it gets booted out if it abuses power. There is no such mechanism for web sites. Once this is out there there's no taking it back, there's no reigning it in, we're stuck with it. Deprecating these APIs is harder than just not implementing them in the first place.

Each of these APIs is sold as a life improving feature but put together you basically end up giving way too much access to any website. Because you know most users will not understand the problem and will just accept which is like sideloading APKs from random corners of the internet. And it's not their fault, you can't be literate in every field. Even as an expert you'd have a hard time deciding if a certain feature is used legitimately or the site will piggyback on it to screw you over. That's why you pay $1000 for a phone, so the manufacturer protects you from these risks.

I agree overall, but:

> That's why you pay $1000 for a phone, so the manufacturer protects you from these risks.

is wishful thinking. You pay 1000$ because that is what people is willing to pay.

> You pay 1000$ because that is what people is willing to pay.

And they are willing to pay that, at least in part, because

> the manufacturer protects you from these risks

Not sure what point you're trying to make. Your logic is circular.

The average customer is not paying 1000$ for getting "protection from those risks", and it is that customer that drives the price, not the average user in HN.

And that is assuming they are trying to "protect you", but that is a different discussion.

> they are trying to "protect you"

They certainly are trying to protect you but I am not naive to think it's out of the kindness of their corporate heart. It's because that's what many people want right now. Apple tried to compete with Google and Facebook at their own game, predictably lost, so changed the rules of the game. Which was a brilliant strategy and if next year they change their stance I will happily reconsider my opinion.

And people don't have to know explicitly every feature and how it's achieved technically. The phone is now almost a commodity, like toothpaste. You buy one because that manufacturer built a trust. You probably buy Colgate, Sensodyne, or OralB (Crest). But not because you carefully analyzed their chemical composition, or pored through study after study. You just trust one, a friend or dentist recommended it, it just works for you, and so on.

That protection the phone affords you may not be immediately apparent but enough people start noticing eventually even if they don't understand the underlying technical part.

A thousand dollars is 1/12 of the average Chinese annual salary

That's why they buy 99$ phones

You're comparing a few millions people living in SV with billions of people making less than 10 dollars a day and assuming that they have the same PPA and that they represent the entirety of the World's user opinions and/or will

> so the manufacturer protects you from these risks.

Gigabytes of pictures in an archive called "the fappening" say a different story.

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