Both companies are trying to sell more of their product.
Of these two I am much more concerned about Facebook because I have much less control over the transaction.
Facebook is easy to ignore. As an app developer there is no way for me to ignore half of all phone users in the US.
If you don't like some other app store, don't shop there.
And, as an iPhone user myself I want this option. So, you certainly do not speak for all iPhone users.
Sure, that's why I said this, explicitly- "Many of us that love our iPhones partially do because of the AppStore."
> That still doesn't explain how giving us a choice of app stores causes a problem.
I'd say, Apple shouldn't and doesn't have to offer another app store because their platform doesn't suck, because of their decisions. I don't want outsiders setting the precedent that people like you are going to be telling Apple how to run their business, it works very well right now without you.
Zuckerberg level mindless ambition wastes everyones time and energy. He has no clue what outcomes his network is going to produce tomorrow morning but stands around acting as if what comes out of his head matters. Its like watching the guy in Jurassic Park still believing things can be fixed after the kids are missing, the power is gone and the raptors have escaped.
Its really mind boggling the patience people have show this buffoon running essentially an unapproved social psyc experiment on 2 billion lab rats, imposing a half baked reward system, that amplifies randomness.
Agreed with what you said, but that's a very inflated figure FB wants us to believe. Most people I know have 2 or more accounts, also all those profiles of dead people, companies manage other fake accounts for promotion, and there are spam actors that run huge amounts of fake profiles. So there might be around 100 million rat labs or way less.
The very point is that it doesn't amplify randomness but content that provokes emotions.
I happily use Facebook (as does almost everyone I know).
I don't consider myself a lab rat, and think it's kind of an offensive way to view your fellow humans in general.
You don't need to be so morally outraged on my behalf - Facebook provides a product that I love using, and I use it, with the understanding that they get advertising money out of it. I'm fine with that transaction, as are most people. You don't have some secret knowledge that I don't have (I imagine) - I know the same things as you, and yet I decide that for myself, using FB is worth the tradeoff of the privacy/advertisements vs. the product itself.
The same as when I decide to eat ice cream, even though it's bad for me. Do you want to put ice cream makers in prison too on my behalf?
Facebook is just a site you don't pay anything to use.
made me immediately think "just don't use Facebook?".
This is like telling people who have privacy concerns about 23andMe / Ancestry DNA "just don't use them." Meanwhile their parents or siblings happily open up the floodgates.
But it's also true that FB probably has way less data about you if you don't use it.
Given that, most people still happily use it (including me).
https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-tracking-you-even-if-you-d...
https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/shoshana-zuboff/th...
1) If you're in tech then the concepts are obvious. But if you're not then plenty of context and education is in order. Most people are the latter. The book is for them.
2) She takes the matter _very_ serious. Rightfully so. The depth and breadth is a form of counter defense. She's thorough and pro-active about plugging holes.
It's not any easy read. But how do you make "privacy as you knew it is on life support" sexy and fun?
https://www.econtalk.org/shoshana-zuboff-on-surveillance-cap...
Not as thorough as the entire book but maybe listening to the interview would help persuade you?
Providing a marketplace like this might loosely be construed as "selling customers" but it is in a massively different class of less abusive behavior than how facebook sells customers.
https://www.wired.com/story/install-apps-outside-app-store-s...
And if they switch to another mall Apple will make their messages green on white to make it harder for elderly parents who stayed in the mall to read and keep up with their kids. That's pretty abusive too, a sort of excommunication via inscrutability.
Facebook through extremely good targeting has turned into the no 1 app discovery tool. This is a fact. This is not to Apple's advantage. They need the app store control for the future of the iphone.
This is simply a way to regain the control. It's the only goal.
It's much harder to go about life without a smart phone than to go without a Facebook account. If you don't register for Facebook and block websites from loading JS snippets from Facebook with e.g. a simple HTTP proxy or domain-based filter, you can more or less block Facebook from getting and selling any info about you.
With iOS or Google's version of Android it's damn near impossible to not hand out all your data.
EDIT: Thanks for the downvotes, I guess criticism of Apple isn't welcome here as usual. But I stand by my right to be suspicious of what they do behind a walled garden OS.
An exception where a smartphone can make a huge difference is travelling — maps, translation, transportation etc all within your fingertips truly are priceless.
I do understand that I'm not the standard model user though, I usually only get a new phone once the last one literally isn't usable anymore.
A lot of places and apps are moving to require smartphones, and I hate this trend.
In China for example you can't even open a bank account without a smart phone, vending machines require smartphones, and even some robotic grocery and convenience stores are requiring a QR code scan to enter the store. I even saw a public restroom once that requires a QR code scan and SMS verification to dispense toilet paper. (That's right, no shitting at that toilet for foreign business professionals without a local +86 phone number and bank account.)
The whole world tends to be moving in that direction now. Uh, welcome to the future? On the US side I've had meetings with clients using Microsoft (R) (SM) (C) (TM) Teams that require a smartphone to authenticate. I have to deposit checks to my bank with a smartphone because they refuse to implement a web version and they also don't have a lot of physical branches. Even Signal, probably the only trustable E2E encryption app, wants a smartphone to log in (ugh).
The phone fulfils almost no other function in my life. Replaced grudgingly every 5-8 years, when it falls apart. I'm on my 4th mobile phone.
Not the "standard model user" either (thank god).
BTW, I keep one separate "security" phone for authentication. Ancient (my 2nd), internet off, stays put.
* There are some feature phones that supposedly support it. These are hard to trust, and probably won't work once Whatsapp has an non-backward compatible update.
[1] Brazil
Isn’t this whole Apple-Facebook feud due to Apple trying to allow users to have more say in their data? It seems weird you’re criticizing them for sharing data in a thread about them trying to let users have more say about their data than competitors and their competitors wanting to sue them over it.
How do you tell 80% (being generous) of the people to go about with JS disabled? Let alone setting-up a proxy, or setting your phone to even allow you to block domains.
I didn't downvote you because you criticized Apple or Google. I downvoted you because I don't think you made a very strong argument to support your claim about going without smartphones. There are reasonable options available with smartphones that don't spy on you. They're not flagship quality, not the fastest phones, but they work fine if your needs for a smartphone are to stay in contact with people for work/personal life, browse the internet, etc. PinePhone for example is gaining popularity & much cheaper: Their new version just sold out but they're taking pre-orders for the next shipment. For something a bit closer to flagship quality you can go for the Librem 5.
I just ordered a PinePhone in the latest batch. From what I’ve been able to find is the software support is a little better for the PinePhone, but the hardware is slower than the already slow Librem 5. It’s closer to being a daily driver, but not by much.
Neither of these phones are a replacement for what most people consider smartphones. Maybe through Android emulation they could be, but if it’s not available as a Linux application or a website then it’s not available for these phones.