Comment by politelemon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by politelemon | Hacker News Reader

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This is an exercise in self-validation because author has invested into an ecosystem. The examples are cherry picked, and motivations are invented to justify author's own bias, while ignoring all the evidence that would discredit the arguments. Notice additionally how the legal 'mitigation' is assumed to be flawless and can only ever be used against bad actors, it's the classic cartel defense of "their store their rules". Think _very_ carefully to when you saw a similar set of behaviors and what impact those had on the technology ecosystem.

This is a legal between two greedy, monopolistic bullies. It is not necessary to pick sides, and it baffles me that so many commenters feel the need to do so. Neither company cares for you; their interests may sometimes _align_ with yours, and they will exploit whatever means necessary, market whatever features necessary to focus your attention on those specific attributes. But make no mistake that their first duty is to their investors.

No dear author, I disagree that you are paying for any of those virtuous virtues that you tout. You are paying to enable a terrible set of behaviors which you are unable to forgive in another company, while you advertise your iBlinders™ to the readers.

I have nothing to do with that ecosystem, yet I find the arguments fairly compelling. So "maybe your explanation isn't broad enough."

Freedom and chaos are aligned; they're correlated; it's not news. Likewise authoritarianism is usually pretty orderly, at least for some definition of order (generally they achieve their own).

For example the principle of free speech, and the openness of certain platforms, is what enables lots of entities to expose people to their ideas. Including let's say the FSB, who tend to use it to sow seeds of discord, confusion and disorganization among the populace of their old adversary the US. Whereas Russia's internet is partly sanitized of "foreign ideas," a practice that offends our sense of freedom of speech, but you have to admit that it's very hard to infiltrate and subvert the Russian Federation with those ideas as a result. Things are orderly, again for some definition of order.

This is completely off-topic, but you either seriously overestimate the amount of censorship in Russian internet (which includes not only Russian citizens, but also Russian speakers elsewhere, of which there are many), or - more likely - seriously underestimate the amount of censorship in popular "global" social networks.

Among popular (non-Chinese) communication tools, Facebook is the most censored. It censors based on ethics, politics, commercial interests, it censors both public posts and private messages, and it does not allow anonymity. The level of censorship in, say, VK (which you're probably thinking of) is not even close to this. And yet, so many people perceive Facebook as a "free" place where FSB can sow whatever they want, and want even more censorship there. Yay freedom...

Also, if you think that Russian internet is more "orderly" (in any definition of "order") than the "global" English-speaking one - I'd say you're misinformed about that too. It's even more of a mess, to be honest...

I believe I'm accurately assessing the situation in America, in that any social networking site is much easier to "get your work published in" than any major (or minor) newspaper in the 20th century. The democratization of information means anyone can have a voice and be heard - including idiots, trolls, and clever organized trolls who turn idiots into useful idiots. (I'm not comparing e.g. Facebook to a theoretical completely open forum as you suggest.)

I can't truly speak authoritatively about Russian censorship, as my Russian language skills aren't very good and these are all things I've heard second-hand. But (back to the US) the issues, topics and tactics I'm talking about would hardly even get the attention of a censor in America anyway. You can stir the pot just by saying something like "African-Americans deserve reparations to compensate for slavery." Nobody is going to censor that. But it's poking at a long-time rift or scar in the American body politic and is almost guaranteed to flare up into a flame war. Especially if you have some other username arguing the opposite point, and a few trolls goading people on both sides.

I think you were a bit unfair because this is Miguel de Icaza, Google him up. He has probably invested (both in money directly and/or programming hours) into EVERY ecosystem you can think of in the last 25 years, paid and unpaid ones.

Agreed. Coming from Miguel, this has 100x the weight of some random schmoe on the internet. Tons of respect for what he's done over his career, and his position on technology and freedom issues.

>and his position on technology and freedom issues.

In the linked article he is cheerleading in favour of closed-off platforms, and promotes ceding control of your software to a third party as a good thing.

But even before this Miguel de Icaza had no integrity left to speak of in my opinion. Some random schmoe actually would have been more believable.

>But even before this Miguel de Icaza had no integrity left to speak of in my opinion

Yes that, for me he always was on the side which had the most money, before it was Microsoft (.NET is the coolest thing ever...that was before Nadella) and after he sold Mono, Apple is the new cool shit...did he already praised Swift for being the coolest thing ever?

I understand this is HN but we need to have some perspective.

Go talk to the consumer. I'd be willing to bet not a lot care about "ceding control of their software." The amount that do, don't matter that much.

Time and time again people on here bloviate about topics such as these, but no action is ever taken. In fact, many on here are just working on more data collecting, more adtech, working at the FAANGs themselves. They tout Data science and ML but somehow want privacy, despite the fact that they rely on the data generated by all of these apps.

This developer utopia doesn't exist and never will. It's best we all be realistic about this reality and understand that just because you can put up with command line doesn't mean Joe from Turtle Creek PA wants to to look at email. And he's willing to give up something for that.

Well, the alternative we all face is ceding control to many various hidden, anonymous, and often malicious actors. Thereis a lot at risk: your privacy, avoidance of falsified information, your possessions. I am all for closing that off.

>Thereis a lot at risk: your privacy, avoidance of falsified information

Like Facebook Google and Amazon?

You are making an Appeal to Authority.

Privacy is a tough problem - I know many people - very intelligent people - who have given up and have figured out their compromise.

I use apple devices, and although I see their good points and bad points, I think pro-privacy is apple marketing rhetoric.

(examples: no firewall possible on ios; "content blockers" are opt-out -- with no way to determine the sites being visited; apple creation of iBeacons plus no ability to turn off bluetooth in quick settings; more dark patterns as time goes on)

> very intelligent people

I don't think being intelligent and standing for your values is related.

They just chose the easy path over the uncomfortable one, the only difference with someone dumb is that they knew what they were doing (and so have no excuse).

I'm not throwing stones at them, I did the same exact choice and I don't feel particularly good about it. I use the 2 most privacy abusive OS there is, Windows and Android and I so distrust them that I can't even have a diary.

>> Neither company cares for you; their interests may sometimes _align_ with yours,

That's the best we can hope. It's not really like every day developers didn't see Apple's anti-competitive behaviour. It's just that they had zero chances to win it in courts. Not to mention the risk of bankrupcy and mental health issues one can experience fighting with such a big, resourcefull bully.

"It is not necessary to pick side, and it baffles me that so many commenters feel the need to do so."

Putting aside the ever-presence of "shills/influencers", I believe when users argue over one bad option versus another, it gives them an illusion of choice and control, or at least it is a type of response to an absence of choice and control. The differences between these tech companies are fewer than the similarities. The "good" option that a rational user would prefer does not exist.

In a "lesser of two evils" situation, it is fascinating how easily the issue of the "evil" itself is forgotten. A common response to the issue of the evil itself might be "We don't have a choice." 100% correct. Yet people behave as if they do, arguing vehemently for one evil over another and inflating minor differences between the two.

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