U.S. bans WeChat, TikTok, citing national security reasons

Just this past week they straight up lied to me about trade-ins. I documented the story here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24486769

acquisition is also innovation. It's a skill, and highly sought after - whether to build or buy. There is someone (or multiple) keeping an eye on inorganic growth via acquisitions. The plan was in place to have Maps etc. So, while building road map or having long term discussions - they decided to get a head-start by going via acquisition route. Remember, they did not stop at acquisition or it did not die because the long term was already in place.

But Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook have too much power in their hands.

Suppose some company had cornered the web search market, and nobody would even try to use some other web search, and used that position to control advertising and all sorts of other access to the web. Perhaps they even come to control the most commonly used web browser; the most commonly used mobile OS. In that environment, where a single company controls the OS and the search and the vast majority of access to the web, are you really more fearful of "eminent domain" than you are of the company wiping you out before you have a chance to capture a piece of the pie by our competing them?

When was the last time a tech company had to worry about civil forfeiture or eminent domain?

Reporters spend about 25 hours a day checking twitter. In most coverage of any tech politics, you're going to see twitter grouped in there as a tech leader, because most reporters feel like it must be just as important as facebook. The numbers obviously disagree, but the attitude can easily spread from the coverage to discussions like this.

It's important to make sure the people in power have their priorities straight. The government is already set up to make the country a better place for all. Corporations cannot fulfill this purpose.

And as for twitter, a lot of tech companies these days are vertically integrated monopolies. That means they have a diverse collection of proprietary services which lack inter-operability and stifle innovation and economic development. For example, how microsoft releases inferior versions of almost every kind of software imaginable, in an attempt to keep all people inside their ecosystem. This is what the original anti-trust suit against microsoft was about. Microsoft was found guilty of holding a monopoly multiple times. They only got away with it because they kept appealing until they found themselves in front of a weak judge. Does twitter have this kind of monopoly? I'm not sure. Amazon certainly could be broken up into a few different companies, as could microsoft, apple, google, easily.

I wonder if this has anything to do with how platforms became locked down at the generational boundary.

Millennials grew up on 90's and 00's internet, where you could download and install anything. It was the most open tech has ever been. Run your own chat software, embed HTML in your MySpace profile, create a forum, etc. Apply patches and cracks to pirated software. Re-skin Winamp. All of it was par for the course for your typical Millennial teenager.

Gen Z has curated experiences in the form of walled silos. Less exposure to the underlying tech.

Granted, some subset will always be attracted to hobbyist pursuit. Game development, app development, Minecraft mods, etc. But it's not as much a part of the day to day experience.

I usually experienced much less resistance explaining tasks and problems to people close to my age. Younger people would listen to a point until I saw their eyes gloss over, waiting for me to get to my point. Many older folks were tuned out from the start and just wanted to hear their problem was fixed. I’m sure part of this involves my lack of skill in explaining technical concepts to non-technical people.

Someone else mentioned that the internet changing over the years affected this. I think part of this also has to do with the pranks of our generation:

-“how do I [x] in this game?” “Alt-F4”

-“how do I get rid of this virus?” “Delete System32”

We’d either look it up first and call BS, or follow the instructions with reckless abandon and learn the hard way.

Somewhat recently we had people microwaving iPhones thinking it’d charge them. I saw more news stories about this than I’d have expected, given it’s metal in a microwave. Something that many of us were taught not to do from a young age.

Search for "millennials killed" on Google.

Edit: But yes, obviously it is not a good thing in the short term.

s/UK/some other free country/

That said, I'm sure there are complex legal criteria in the US that could lead to a lengthy court case.

It's basically what they did to -- uhh, what was it called? The encrypted email service Snowden used when he was smuggling NSA docs. $2k per day, increasing over time, adds up fast.

Once you're staring at an executive order, questions of whether they really have the power fall to lawyers. In the meantime, corporations comply.

  Fighting for the freedom of chinese app to be installed in USA land but theirs can’t.  It does not fit the freedom for all concept I guess.

Given the administration tends to make decisions based more on xenophobia than empirical evidence and there's good reasons to think these apps have shady data practices, nothing about this situation is clear cut.