FTC requests Facebook to sell WhatsApp and Instagram | Hacker News Reader

FTC requests Facebook to sell WhatsApp and Instagram

independent.co.uk

73 pointspouwerkerk15 comments

That's a right thing to do. It should follow Apple to be required to sell App Store, iOS and macOS. Google should be required to sell Ad Sense, YouTube and gmail and so on. This concentration of power is bad for everyone except shareholders.

> Apple to be required to sell App Store, iOS and macOS

Not going to happen. Do you want them to build only hardware?

Yea, I agree with the Google bit but this part made me think GP is being sarcastic…. Those 3 elements are part of the same Ecosystem and in a way, the same product.

Amazon and Microsoft own WAY more tangentially related companies than Apple, and are constantly gobbling up more and more.

Yes. Why not? They should make hardware and publish the specs. Of course. That is very unlikely due to the power they already have.

This only makes sense if you completely misunderstand the value of Apple as a company. You're asking for the death of Apple and it's entire ecosystem, not for an anti-trust solution.

There's no reason iOS needs to be the only game in town. Why can't Apple Computers and Apple Operating Systems be different companies?

As the person you’re replying to said, this only makes sense if you don’t understand what Apple is providing. They are selling an experience, not hardware. Innovation on one or the other in this hypothetical of two Apples means it’s available to all other market participants which means they’re paying for others research.

Then writing software becomes harder as you have to support everything under the sun and have difficulty deprecating things like MS does with windows. You have to check for individual hardware instead of writing for a platform. This argument is basically “what is the value of a platform?”

> Innovation on one or the other in this hypothetical of two Apples means it’s available to all other market participants which means they’re paying for others research.

They're already “paying for others' research”, because you're allowed to copy what Apple does.

> Then writing software becomes harder as you have to support everything under the sun

Whoever said they can't still write for a platform? It can be the responsibility of other iPhone manufacturers to make to-spec iPhones.

> They're already “paying for others' research”, because you're allowed to copy what Apple does.

Patents cover anything innovative.

> Whoever said they can't still write for a platform? It can be the responsibility of other iPhone manufacturers to make to-spec iPhones.

and this works well currently with android and other platforms (cough palm). on android tv can i stream wirelessly to my headphones with zero lag? on chromebooks can i sync a bluetooth mouse and it show up on my other chromebooks?

You cannot have 2 companies and still have tight integration.

Android is a software platform. Look at the stuff that people did on IBM PC (a hardware platform).

And also?

> on chromebooks can i sync a bluetooth mouse and it show up on my other chromebooks?

This is pure software. I could do that between a Debian machine and a Windows machine, if I wanted. You're overstating the need for software / hardware integration.

> This is pure software.

Nope. Because the certificate used to create the secret during the handshake must be kept secret. Apple uses custom hardware of this. Unless you think certificate keys should exist in main memory allowing for them to be stolen and your secure bluetooth connection to be compromised.

> I could do that between a Debian machine and a Windows machine, if I wanted.

Let’s see it. And while we’re at it throw in seamlessly (think non tech user seamless) downloading and sharing media to all your devices on your network. Not just ripped DVDs, protected newly releases DRMed up media. With nothing more than 2 clicks and an app install (for apple tv only)

You’re stuck in this everything is software world. That’s changing and as things progress further we’ll see more and more hardware used. Primarily so we can specialize and reduce the power consumption for generic solutions operating on generic processors.

By the same logic, XBOX and the OS that runs it should be separate, and the PlayStation and the OS that runs on that should also be split into separate legal entities.

But that really makes no sense either.

> By the same logic, XBOX and the OS that runs it should be separate,

That's kind of the case, nowadays; XBOX runs a slightly modified Windows 10, and you don't need to buy a Microsoft brand computer (the XBOX) to play XBOX games (you just need Microsoft Windows 10).

> and the PlayStation and the OS that runs on that should also be split into separate legal entities.

https://wiki.debian.org/PS3

And that's besides the point. Games consoles are for playing video games on, but Apple is selling a general-purpose computing device (according to the adverts, at least). Their smart watches, yeah, I can understand treating that as an embedded system, but the iPhone‽ When they're profiting from their App Store monopoly, they have ulterior motives to keep it locked down, and antitrust should swoop in to save the day.

If you can only put one OS on a device,

[dupe]

discussion brewing over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28235555

But then how will we build metaverse?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com