Hacker News Reader

Comment by guytv | Hacker News Reader

In a somewhat amusing turn of events, it appears Meta has taken a page out of Microsoft's book on how to create a labyrinthine login experience.

I ventured into ai.meta.com, ready to log in with my trusty Facebook account. Lo and behold, after complying, I was informed that a Meta account was still not in my digital arsenal. So, I crafted one (cue the bewildered 'WTF?').

But wait, there's a twist – turns out it's not available in my region.

Kudos to Microsoft for setting such a high bar in UX; it seems their legacy lives on in unexpected places."

View on HN

I'm on android. It asked me if I wanted to use FB, instagram or email. I chose Instagram. That redirected to Facebook anyway. Then facebook redirected to saying it needed to use my VR headset login (whatever that junk was called I haven't used since week 1 buying it). I said oook.

It then said do I want to proceed via combining with Facebook or Not Combining.

I canceled out.

> then said do I want to proceed via combining with Facebook or Not Combining.

This is what many many people asked for: a way to use meta stuff without a Facebook account. It’s giving you a choice to separate them.

People only asked for it because they took it away in the first place. I was using Oculus fine without any Facebook crap for years.

They should make that more obvious and clear.

And not make me make the choice while trying a totally new product.

They never asked when I log into Facebook. Never asked when I log into Instagram. About to try a demo of a new product doesn't seem like the right time to ask me about an account logistics question for a device I haven't used for a year.

Also, that concept makes sense for sure. But I had clicked log in with Instagram. Then facebook. If I wanted something separate for this demo, I'd have clicked email.

If your region is the EU, you have your regulators to blame - their AI regs are rapidly becoming more onerous.

If your argument is that EU regulators need to be more like America's, boy, did you pick the wrong crowd to proselytize. People here are actually clued in to the dangers of big data.

Honestly it can go either way here on HN. There’s a strong libertarian bias here that’ll jump at any chance to criticise what they see as “stifling innovation”.

Well I mean that's the logical conclusion to what these regulations achieve. Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to know when it's worthwhile and when it isn't, but these regulations force companies pushing the envelope with new tech to slow down and do things differently. The intention is always good*, the outcome sometimes isn't. One doesn't have to affiliate with any political party to see this.

*Charitably I think we can all agree there's likely someone with good intentions behind every regulation. I do understand that the whole or even the majority of intention behind some regulations may not be good.

I don’t disagree, and I probably shouldn’t have put “stifling innovation” in quotes, as you’re right: that is the goal here.

My criticism is more levied at those who treat the fact that regulations can increase the cost of doing business as inherently bad without stopping to consider that profits may not be the be all and end all.

Not the be all and end all - but I do think there should be a strong presumption in favor of activities that consist of providing people with something they want in exchange for money.

Generally those transactions are welfare improving. Indeed, significant improvements in welfare over the last century can be largely traced to the bubbling up of transactions like these.

Sure, redistribute the winnings later on - but picking winners and banning certain transactions should be approached with skepticism. There should be significant foreseen externalities that are either evidentially obvious (e.g. climate change) or agreed upon by most people.

> "I do think there should be a strong presumption in favor of activities that consist of providing people with something they want in exchange for money."

> "There should be significant foreseen externalities that are either evidentially obvious"

Wireheading.

An obesity crisis[1] which costs $173Bn/year of medical treatment. $45Bn/year in lost productivity due to dental treatments[2]. Over half the uk drinking alcohol at harmful levels[3]. Hours of social media use per day linked to depressive symptoms and mental health issues[4].

People are manipulable. Sellers will supply as much temptation as the market will bear. We can't keep pretending that humans are perfectly rational massless chickens. Having CocaCola lobbying to sell in vending machines in schools, while TikTok catches children's attention and tells them they are fat and disgusting and just shrugging and saying the human caught in the middle should just pull on their self control bootstraps - society abandoning them to the monsters - is ridiculous, and gets more ridiculous year on year.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/oral_health_disparities/index...

[3] https://www.ias.org.uk/2023/01/30/what-happened-with-uk-alco...

[4] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5...

The children are mostly okay and I view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you.

Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine?

More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions.

The Lancet[1] says "Childhood obesity rates have increased substantially over the past year in the UK, according to a new report from the UK Government's National Child Measurement Programme. This rise in prevalence is the largest single-year increase since the programme began 15 years ago and highlights the worldwide rising trend for obesity among children and adolescents [...] it is now an undeniable public health crisis."

and "a US study reported an increase in recreational screen time of almost 4 h a day in children aged 12–13 years during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Why do you think this is "mostly okay" and why is "mostly okay but getting worse" good enough for you?

> "I view this as a veil for conservatism."

I view this as sticking your head in the sand and trying to distract from it with a cheap insult. By 2030 do you think obesity prevalence will have gone up or down? Screen time? Depression levels? Happiness? Isolation? They've all been trending in bad directions for years, despite COVID. Smartphone apps aren't going to magically get fewer gambling mechanics and dark patterns, two hundred million people aren't magically going to stop responding to advertising and stop eating McDonalds, American cities aren't magically going to turn away from cars and pro-walking.

> "Tiktok fat shaming is bad but leading your “society is dystopia” comment with obesity rates in the US is fine?""

Calling out a public health crisis isn't fat shaming, so yes it's fine.

> "More extensive redistribution rather than moral panic + regulation over tiktok. Let’s not waste time on speculative interventions."

You can't fix juvenile diabetes by taking cash from McDonalds and throwing it at the sick child, or the sick child's doctors. There's nothing speculative about this - companies engineer food to exploit our senses, and engineer advertising to exploit our weaknesses, we know it works, we see the results of it, and we should stop it.

> "view this as a veil for conservatism because they don’t behave the same as you.*"

It isn't about how they behave, it's about why we behave. The why is willful manipulation by companies which want profit and don't care about harming us to get it. The manipulation is effective, coersive, substantial, powerful, abhorrent.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...

> willful manipulation

Not trying to be inflammatory, but you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad?

> companies engineer food to exploit our senses [...] and we should stop it

I'm struggling to comprehend what you actually mean here, because the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better.

> "you're trying to manipulate readers right now. Why is your manipulation good but companies manipulation is bad?"

I didn't say my manipulation is good. Why is lifting 1Kg good but lifting 1000Kg bad? My manipulation doesn't have a billion dollars and a team of PhDs behind it. "Children need to be protected from pervasive junk food adverts in apps, social media and video blogs, the World Health Organization says." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318

> "the only interpretation I'm coming up with is that you believe a central authority should stop people from making food taste better."

Even when people are suffering obesity with malnutrition[1] to the point of death while companies advertise 'happy meals', we still won't face that there's a problem. Central authorities act to prevent harm societal harms at the expense of personal freedoms in many existing situations. Here is a societal harm. Here is some central authority pushback: https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/45110055 and https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-advertising-rules-to-...

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-018-0143-9

> companies engineer food to exploit our senses

This is just a maximally edgy way to phrase "companies are making tasty food". Which I don't disagree with - like Stephan Guyenet and (apparently) you, I blame the fatness problem on the fact that we've evolved to eat a bit extra because food wasn't always available, and now we're surrounded by an extreme variety of tasty food 24/7. I don't believe any of these food ideologues (keto, anti-grain, carnivore) who try to vilify a single ingredient or food group. But then, how could you possibly regulate that? If it was some bad ingredient then it could be limited or banned, but how would you regulate tastiness itself? To me, this seems hopeless, and I'm expecting the obesity problem to get addressed by a combination of making cities more walkable and normalizing semaglutide-like drugs to the point their use is as ordinary as popping a vitamin pill with breakfast. I'm curious to hear if you have different ideas.

In 2001, 23% of American adults were obese and the Surgeon General declared it a nationwide epidemic and a major public health problem.

By 2010 the FDA's "Healthy People Program" setup to tackle obesity reported failure, then 34% of adults were obese.

In 2013 no states had more than 35% obesity, the CDC reports.

Now 22 states have have more than 35% obesity.

Now 41.9 percent of adults have obesity, says Trust for America's Health.

Is that really all down to "companies are making tasty food" and not any kind of problem? Being surrounded by an extreme variety of tasty food 24/7 isn't only about the food, it's also about the surroundings. Advertising, billboards, TV, internet, apps, in-school vending machines. Vending machines, slogans, bright colours, targetting more impressionable and impulsive and weak willed subset of the population (children), or more time-stressed people (parents, people with two jobs), presenting food in association with bright colours, happy characters, happy situations, good life outcomes, yadda yadda, focusing on the positives (convenience) and downplaying the negatives (health).

> "I'm expecting the obesity problem to get addressed by a combination of making cities more walkable and normalizing semaglutide-like drugs to the point their use is as ordinary as popping a vitamin pill with breakfast. I'm curious to hear if you have different ideas."

National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK says about Semaglutide[5]: Side-effects For semaglutide; Common or very common: Appetite decreased (in patients with type 2 diabetes); burping; cholelithiasis; constipation; diarrhoea; fatigue; gastrointestinal discomfort; gastrointestinal disorders; hypoglycaemia (in combination with other antidiabetic drugs, in patients with type 2 diabetes); nausea; vomiting; weight decreased (in patients with type 2 diabetes). Uncommon: Pancreatitis acute; taste altered. Manufacturer advises to record the brand name and batch number after each administration. Patients and carers should be counselled on the effects on driving and performance of skilled tasks—increased risk of dizziness, particularly during the dose escalation period.

Drugs.com has worse "more common" side effects as well as those: Anxiety, blurred vision, chills, cold sweats, confusion, depression, fast heartbeat, fever, headache, large, hive-like swelling on the face, eyelids, lips, tongue, throat, hands, legs, feet, or sex organs. nightmares, slurred speach, trouble breathing.

Don't stop Coca Cola advertising, instead normalise taking drugs to try and counter the effects of drinking Coca Cola. It's a for-profit arms race, and our bodies are the battlefield. I'm in favour of more walkable cities though. I'm expecting it not to get addressed - restricting advertising is counter to the "everyone can advertise anything and it's up to you if you choose to buy it" norm, and I think it's partially not up to us and we are manipulatable, and that goes against the "I'm a free Human!" norm. I'm expecting a continuance of the "willpower, personal responsibility" useless sayings while the industry continues to get better and better at overcoming willpower, wearing down willpower, removing alternatives, normalization of deviance, lobbying.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-37846318

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4904092/

[3] https://www.tfah.org/report-details/state-of-obesity-2023/

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0922-adult-obesity....

[5] https://bnf.nice.org.uk/drugs/semaglutide/#handling-and-stor...

[6] https://www.drugs.com/sfx/semaglutide-side-effects.html

We are approaching more regulation of tech than of major known bad industries like oil & gas, largely due to negative media coverage.

I think that is a bad trend.

It really does astonish me when people point to 'negative media coverage' when the media is being pretty fair about it. I listen to takes on all sides, and they all point to major problems. On the left it's genocide / misinformation about things like vaccines, on the right it's censoring the Biden laptop / some deep state conspiracy that makes almost every doctor in the world misinform their patients. And both adequately show the main problem that's happening due to these tech platforms: extreme polarization.

Hard for me to gauge how earnest this comment is - if the media is being fair about it, you wouldn't take their coverage as evidence of extreme polarization. But maybe you are being tongue in cheek?

Well the 'mainstream media' (I now hate this term) is being pretty fair, but you have offshoot "media" companies that aren't doing any real journalism, just riling up their fanbases to get more clicks/views. The 'real' media is being fair in criticizing the social media companies for promoting Fox News / OAN / whoever else as if they're on par with actual journalism. And for sending people down rabbit holes / filter bubbles so that when they see truth they scoff at it.

The world isn’t so black and white. You can support EU regulators doing some things while agreeing they skew towards inefficient in other things.

EU gdp per capita was 90% of the US in 2013 and is now at ~65%.

It’s a disaster over there and better inequality metrics in Europe do not make up for that level of disparate material abundance for all but the very poorest Americans.

There is a fair amount of EURUSD FX change in that GDP change.

EURUSD FX change also reflects real changes in our relative economies. The Fed can afford to engage in less contractionary policy because our economy is doing well and people want our exports.

A little bit, but not much. However, FX reacts strongly to interest differentials in the short/medium-term.

But at what price? I've seen documentaries about homeless and drug addicts on the streets of US cities that made my skin crawl. Turbo-capitalism may work fine for the US GPD but it doesn't seem to have worked fine for the US population in general. In other words, the very poor you mention are increasing.

Aggregate statistics give you a better view than documentaries, for obvious reasons. I could make a documentary about Mafia in Sicily that could make you convinced that you would have someone asking for protection money if you started a café in Denmark.

There are roughly 300k homeless in France and roughly 500k homeless in the US. France just hides it and pushes it to the banlieus.

You're right, homelessness was a bad example and documentaries can distort reality. There are still some things about the US that I dislike and at least partially seem to be the result of too much laissez faire capitalism, such as death by gun violence, opioid abuse, unaffordable rents in cities, few holidays and other negative work-life balance factors, high education costs, high healthcare costs, and an inhumane penal system.

Isn't a part of that is because over recent decade Europe acquired a lot of very poor capitas courteousy of USA Africa and Middle Eastearn meddling?

Just because someone calls EU regulations bad, doesn't mean they are saying American regulations (/lack of..) are good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Oh don't worry, we'll get regulations once there are some clear market leaders who've implemented strong moats they can have codified into law to make competition impossible.

Monopolistic regulation is how we got the internet into space, after all! /s

---

/s, but not really /s: Google got so pissed off at the difficulty of fighting incumbents for every pole access to implement Fiber that they just said fuck it. They curbed back expansion plans and invested in SpaceX with the goal of just blasting the internet into space instead.

Several years later.. space-internet from leo satellites.

To be fair, one solution is new regulations but another is removing legal protections. Consumers have effectively no avenue to legally challenge big tech.

At best there are collective action lawsuits, but those end up with little more than rich legal firms and consumers wondering why anyone bothered to mail them a check for $1.58

Wrong - the people who actually get the legal firm to initiate the suit typically get much higher payout than generic class members, which makes sense imo and explicitly helps resolve the problem you are identifying.

Happy to be wrong there if those individuals who initiate the suit get a large return on it. I haven't heard of any major payouts there but honestly I don't know the last time I only saw the total suit amount or the tiny settlement amount I was offered, could definitely be a blind spot on my end.

Regulators in the EU are just trying to hamstring American tech competitors so they can build a nascent industry in Europe.

But what they need is capital and capital is frightened by these sorts of moves so will stick to the US. EU legislators are simply hurting themselves, although I have heard that recently they are becoming aware of this problem.

Wish those clued into the dangers of big data would name the precise concern they have. I agree there are concerns, but it seems like there is a sort of anti-tech motte-bailey constellation where every time I try to infer a specific concern people will claim that actually the concern is privacy, or fake news, or AI x-risk. Lots of dodging, little earnest discussion.

I would be surprised if building up a corresponding EU industry is really a motive beyond lip service. Probably for simpler motives of not wanting new technologies to disrupt comfortable middle class lives.

The EU DMA law was specifically crafted to only target non-EU companies and they are on the record saying that they only picked the 6 or 7 largest companies because if they went beyond that it would start including European tech cos.

Source? Because it really comes down to who it was.

‘ Schwab has repeatedly called for the need to limit the scope of the DMA to non-European firms. In May 2021, Schwab said, “Let’s focus first on the biggest problems, on the biggest bottlenecks. Let’s go down the line—one, two, three, four, five—and maybe six with Alibaba. But let’s not start with number seven to include a European gatekeeper just to please [U.S. president Joe] Biden.”’

from https://www.csis.org/analysis/implications-digital-markets-a...

Intentionality seems pretty clear and this guy is highly relevant to the crafting of DMA.

It’s just an approach to procedural lawmaking that is somewhat foreign to American minds that are used to ‘bill of attainder’ style concerns.

He didn't suggest not to include a European company to protect it but rather it shouldn't just be in there to placate the US. That is different from it should be in there but we keep it out to protect it.

If you read that and come away thinking there aren’t protectionist impulses at play, I don’t know what to tell you.

There probably are, but my guess is that they are secondary to just not wanting "that stuff" in the first place.

I'm as libertarian as anyone here, and probably more than most.

But even I'm having trouble finding it possible to blame regulators... bad software's just bad software. For instance, it might have checked that he was in an unsupported region first, before making him jump through hoops.

Certainly, because I am not a libertarian.

> For instance, it might have checked that he was in an unsupported region first, before making him jump through hoops.

Why would they do that?

Not doing it inflates their registration count.

Sure, but so does the increment operator. If they're going to lie to themselves, they should take the laziest approach to that. High effort self-deception is just bad form.

My favorite with microsoft was just a year or two ago (not sure about now) - there was something like a 63 character limit for the login password.

Obviously they didn't tell me this, and of course they allowed me to set my password to it without complaining.

From why I could tell they just truncated it with no warning. Setting it below 60 characters worked no problem.

conways law

Always great to read its Wikipedia page [1].

I find it specially annoying when governments just copy their bureaucratic procedures into an app or the web and there is not contextual information.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law?wprov=sfti1#

What does '?wprov=sfti1#' mean at the end of Wikipedia URLs? I have seen that quite frequently these days.

Analytics: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Provenance

It's a parameter for tracking link shares. In this case, sfti1 means sharing a fact as text on iOS.

https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Provenance

At least it's not personally identifiable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com