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Comment by backprojection | Hacker News Reader

Why would it need to benefit the consumer? None of these companies operate to directly benefit the consumer.

Note: I agree with your sentiment

My knee-jerk, emotional, response is to agree with you because from my perspective: they aren't working to win consumers by building the best product, they either buy-out the technology they want or stomp competing technology with patents. The biggest players cost each other billions hoping to cripple each others ability to compete, or eradicate the competing product altogether.

Yes, we get a phone out of it, but that phone is so we can buy apps, pay providers for service (fine, except we pay out the nose for things that aren't even really necessary like text message plans on smart phones that don't need them), they sell us the device, or the apps, and then track us, monitor us, and sell that information so that they can better target and sell us more stuff.

We're not just the consumer, our habits are a product.

But that's my knee jerk doom and gloom response, something I keep in the back of my mind when I work on more rational reactions.

You are confusing Google with Apple.

Apple doesn't make money on its App Store. It has a great app store to sell devices.

In contrast, Google gives away adware products to earn more money (by tracking and spying on Android users).

The iTunes App Store doesn't work on anything else other than iOS. It's a complementary product that keeps people buying iDevices. It also keeps people buying from iTunes in general and Apple does make money from selling content.

     Google gives away adware products to 
     earn more money (by tracking and spying on 
     Android users).

Oh please, like Apple isn't doing it. They've got the biggest, most important online content store. They've got customers by their balls in a way that Microsoft only dreams of.

So, WebOS programs is suppose to work on Windows Phone Nintendo games are suppose to work on Sony Playstation? Using your own words, Android "got customers by their balls in a way that Microsoft only dreams of" because Android Market doesn't work on a Dell.

No, my point is that web apps are working everywhere - Android, iOS, WebOS, Windows, OS X, Samsung Bada, Symbian. The experience suffers, but they do work everywhere and it's a huge market outside of iTunes that's waiting to be taken advantage of.

     Using your own words, Android "got customers by 
     their balls in a way that Microsoft only dreams of"
     because Android Market doesn't work on a Dell.

Those weren't my words. However Google doesn't have the same lock-in with Android simply because Android customers can install software from third-party sources. And Microsoft would have never been capable of banning apps (like Firefox) from their platform because it duplicates existing functionality. Apple may have relaxed the rules of administer lately, but it's still a closed garden that even Microsoft wasn't able to pull off.

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