Apple Is Holding the Final Nail for X’s Coffin | Hacker News Reader

Apple Is Holding the Final Nail for X’s Coffin

bloomberg.com

It's outrageous how much power have accumulated in the hands of the companies that control platforms with network effects: Apple, Google, Valve, and others. Every developer should think twice about what risks they're accepting before building on someone else's network.

The sad part though is the acceptance and complacency around the power of these platforms. People have grown up with their favourite platforms and are becoming thoroughly subservient.

What else are they to do (in the current way things are)?

Combine this with the abuse of their monopoly and it’s set to get worse. One example of many: the incredibly slow adoption/crippling of web apps on iOS, so users have to purchase via App Store instead.

Fortunately Apple is hopefully getting forced to allow sideloading in the future, which would solve the control problem. (The network effect would still stay under the free speech on both sides fortunately)

You can always install custom apps on Android and Valve is only one of many stores, so I'm not sure they really come under control at all...

It’s good, I like the idea of gatekeepers.

Until they close the gate right before you

Then the gate’s closed.

In many ways this debate reflects the ongoing, much greater one around politics and governance. Many people would prefer a “benevolent dictator” who wields more power and can “get things done”.. ..but once you’ve surrendered that power to them, it can’t be easily taken back.

Super Admin’s first action: delete other super admins!

Meh it’s just some consumer technology, it’s nice but if it’s gone, I’m not gonna to miss it too much.

Good for you

And I don't like the idea of a pen or a notebook company giving themselves editorial power over what people write in those notebook, which is basically what happens now.

I'm disgusted at how we transform such fantastic things as personal computer and turn them into such limited object.

Anyone can set up a blog and write whatever craziness they’d like just like you can with a pen or notebook. But no one is entitled to unlimited reach, and that was the case before personal computers came along.

No newspaper has published every single letter anyone sends to the editor without using some discretion.

This unlimited reach was kinda possible with all the printing technology, and such things as zine.

But the main point is that it's the newspaper's own editor, following the newspaper's own editorial line (and possibly the law)

Zines have really small reach compared to the app store and Twitter, and yet still also have editorial direction. You can't just send in any ol' thinkpiece and expect to get it published; it will need to resonate with their sensibilities.

The fact of the matter is that everything is gatekept. If you want something done right (as in, not subject to someone else's rules), do it yourself, and you'll find you too will gatekeep after you've spent the considerable effort required to build your own device/OS/appstore ecosystem and social media service, and then someone comes along and tries to tell you how you should run things.

> a pen or a notebook company giving themselves editorial power over what people write in those notebook

Don't forget about the most important part: putting what you wrote in front of millions of peoples' eyeballs. No pen/notebook company does that. And if they did, you're not entitled to the vast amount of labor that entails.

But that's Twitter/X labor, not the App Store labor, the App Store should ideally be a glorified S3.

Strong "dropbox is just rsync" HN vibes right here. Even if it were just "glorified" (whatever that means to you) S3, it would take labor resources to maintain. But it's also much more than that, it's a social service on top of the technical details that tries to maintain a strong security layer.

But that's the thing: I don't want this "social service", at all.

The labor resources would ideally be reduced by only doing hosting, and to check if the deployed app doesn't contains a malware, not on whether the app follows the guidelines created by some assholes in California.

By example, I'm completely creeped by Apple's relations to pornography, and how that impact apps such as Grindr. I'm creeped by the article's suggestion that Apple may remove the Twitter app "to protect" it's user from seeing Alex Jones content. In the same way, I wouldn't want my chinese-made phone to "protect" me from political opinion unsavory to peoples in Beijing.

That is why I really prefer the web vision of just deploying stuff on a domain you own, with a server you rent, and importantly no such thing as a whitelist of accepted domains curated by the browser maintainers. Of course even then there are limits to the kind of thing you can put in there, but nowhere near as much as those done on App stores.

I'm french, and despite both being western countries, there's enough cultural differences between France and the US to make me really despise any attempt at content control by platforms who I believe should stay culturally neutral; instead I just see people having accepted this level of cultural influence as being normal, even beneficial.

The general public arrived and their wants transformed computers. And now they have left computers for their phones. You can still do all the things you used to be able to do on your computer.

Me too, they're coming for the socialists and I'm not a socialist so why would I care.

I guess they should then ban any app that has access to the internet, including Safari, I can find Alex Jones there, I should be protected!

edit: And if it is not obvious, I don't endorse nor do I like Alex Jones. I'm just pointing that banning X from appstore because Alex Jones is on the platform (with other XXX milions of users) is illogical and dangerous.

There's a spectrum between banning everything that can potentially get content about Alex Jones when the user searches for him explicitly, and banning apps which actively promote Alex Jones. You're bringing up an extreme idea which is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

This is a reasonable, balanced view. And then you remember apple banning 3rd party reddit clients for not preventing access to yuck, while apple books and itunes and music is constantly promoting soft-yuck covers at you no problem.

You can block Alex Jones on X and be done with it, which I am doing with low quality/conspiracy/spam content that pops up.

What I'm trying to say is that I am grown up and I can police my space myself, I don't need a corporation to do it for me in this cases. I would be ok with a ban if like 90%+ content on an app is obnoxious or scammy. But X has hundreds of millions of users. A lot of them are like Alex Jones, but much more of them are not.

To be honest, I can more easily, or am recommended more often obnoxious stuff on Facebook (which I stopped using), Reddit, or Instagram (stopped using, but it also promote fake identities and generates a lot of mental health issues, especially for younger girls), and don't get me on TikTok (which I refuse to create an account on ever) which is an ultimate cesspool of a network. There is also Telegram with thousands of groups sharing smutty war stuff and hard core propaganda.

Why don't we ban all of them then? Any network with more than 100 users because at least one at that point will be obnoxious or a sociopath or somebody with view most of us would not agree with?

Can you also block harassment and death threats from Jones' readers, after he accused you of being a "crisis actor"? Cuz that's what happened to some of the Sandy Hook families. That harm was valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars by the court, though Jones has yet to pay any of it.

Unfortunately, blocking somebody doesn't always mean you're done with it.

> What I'm trying to say is that I am grown up and I can police my space myself

I’m not worried about you because you appear to think. I am worried about the millions of people out there that simply believe whatever they are fed (some of them are my friends). Not sure if censorship is the answer, but we have to figure something out so we don’t slip into very big problems because of the mindless masses.

> A lot of them are like Alex Jones, but much more of them are not.

Sure, but which ones are provided to you as choices when you open an account with no context? A few weeks ago people were doing some sampling of that and ended up with almost entirely right/far-right lists. I wouldn't be surprised if Alex joined that list soon. (He's on it indirectly already since Elon is recommended)

I don't like the tone of the article

Or when do Apple’s supposed corporate principles demand it no longer take the 30% it enjoys from sign-ups to X’s premium services?

Why the snipe at Apple's principles? They sure like money, but it hasn't stopped them from blocking countless apps in the past.

I didn’t read it that way - I felt it was genuinely weighing up the possibility that Apple might feel compelled to act.

I think their principles are genuinely held but, as with any business, they won’t make knee-jerk decisions as they have to also consider impact on shareholders.

https://archive.ph/rxeZX

Hasn't Twitter always been in breach of Apple's policy due to porn?

So we get less random censorship, and the downside is that the most toxic place on the Internet might go dark.

Heads we win, tail they lose.

The balance is what is needed in Social Media, but the balance cannot be provided as there are various influences, wealthy individuals, organizations, foreign governments, domestic governments that try to shift the balance.

We will never have "truth" in media. It is always controlled by people in position of power.

Platforms will always choose to moderate contents themselves, rather than to provide social tools for the users to indicate where the truth lies. Therefore companies will remove thumbs down. It is up for their algorithms to decide what you see, and what is not seen.

They will always prefer to host Oversight boards rather than produce social platforms tools for the users to moderate contents.

I thought this was gonna be about X (as in X.org).

Go for it, this will force X to provide a better web app (isn’t too bad today to be honest). Not sure Apple would want that.

Never even got to the web app because of how aggressively they login-gate every aspect of it.

Normally that wouldn't be a problem and way within their rights but unfortunately everyone (including officially elected politicians) somehow chose twitter/x as their official communications channel. It gives that company pretty much full power to sway any political discussion should it want to while also keeping people without an account (like me) completely out.

I'm not sure how to solve this problem. I would help electing better politicians but every potential candidate also uses twitter/x for their campaigning.

Or a Tesla Phone!

So, Musk is totally fine to hang out, publicly, with the likes of Andrew Tate (!) and Alex Jones. Tells you everything you need to know. But it sure is hell of a way to burn 44 billion.

Somebody needs to put Musk into rehab. Before he got into drugs, Musk seemed to be sane. It's been downhill since then.[1][2][3]

[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musks-odd-behavior-may-be...

[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-psychedelics-burni...

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/17/tesla-board-members-reported...

This audience says he just craves attention and has low self esteem. Bonkers really.

X is already gone from my Home Screen to a folder. Second page! I struggle to see it having any relevance in the future at this rate.

Twitter was relevant, X is passé.

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other"

— Benjamin Franklin

He could have had his fill of clowns for the price of a circus ticket.

But he couldn't have fired half of them.

It is kind if said so, that despite all the success Musk had he still is so insecure to crave attention at every cost.

It seems to be all about shock value. Just like the algorithms, it's all about the attention, it doesn't matter if it's cheers or disgust.

I mean, he's also going to be speaking at a youth festival for the reigning neo-fascist party in Italy. What's that aphorism, "when someone tells you who they are you should listen"?

I think he really does just have far-right sympathies.

The current government in Italy is right wing, but it's not neo fascist, let's stop crying wolf.

There are parties in Europe organizing their own militias, the Italian right wing has at best sued critics, which is bad but not "storm capitol hill" bad.

I'm not Italian or an expert in neo-fascism, I'm just going by what I've seen other people say. Even Wikipedia calls them neo-fascist, and it has a few academic sources backing that up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_of_Italy

Regardless, they are pretty indisputably on the very far right of the overton window

alas, the wikipedia talk page does include multiple people trying to point out this is wrong, and the academic sources (I checked 3 of them) do not seem to actually analize the party in depth.

* One mentions it, once, saying it's similar to french FN (which wikipedia does not consider as "neo-fascist").

* one mentions one of the party leaders, twice, and once says he belongs to a "neo-fascist party"

* one mentions it in a footnote.

None of these represent a political analysis, but they do show how you can manipulate wikipedia with

I agree 100% that FdI is far right, despicable, and as far from my personal ideas as a party can be.

That's an older article, but the point of calling the current Italian government neo-facist isn't necessarily wrong:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/gi...

As far as I understand, the article is basically saying that

* the far right shares ideology and slogans with fascism

* FdI leadership comes from the background of post-fascist parties

but neither makes them neo-fascist, based on the fact that _all the right parties in the world_ shares the same slogans, and FdI has (in words) reneged what the fascism has been. La Russa, who is one of the most dreadful characters in the party, took the time to cite the liberation of Italy from fascism as a shared national value when he was elected as chair of the senate

In contrast, Italy does have actual neo-fascist parties such as Casapound and Forza Nuova, with people marching dressed in black, and with programmatic goals which include abolishing the current prohibition to re-establish the fascist party in Italy.

I dislike what Meloni stands for, and we should call out everything bad her government does, without need to call her "neo-fascist".

Didn't pretty much everyone hang out with with Jeffrey Epstein as well? Or with war criminals like Bush? How can people think "oh, he hangs out with Alex Jones" is an argument?

Jeffery Epstein was good at hiding his actions. Bush was never convicted of being a war criminal, and he was despite being a war monger, newer using false information and outright lies the way Alex Jones is (I know what he and his administration did with regards to Saddam and Iraq, and the war on terror was almost as bad an idea as was Russias invasion of Ukraine).

But yes, I do consider hanging out with Epstein and Bush in my evaluation of people as well.

Jones, hell, from a certain point I get it, this guy brings traffic. Tate is just bottom of the barrel scum so, and it ia pretty pathetic for the formerly richest man of the world to promote the manosphere, that is more a thing for third rate, butt hurt youtubers who cannot cope with women having a mind of their own.

Yeah this. One was a secret c@@t - the other is quite open about it.

_Before it was widely known what Epstein was up to_, yeah. But, like, Alex Jones is not exactly secretive about what he's up to.

Tl;dr: Apple can remove the X app from its app store (as it can always do to any app). That's what the article's author, Dave Lee, and, presumably, disclaimer notwithstanding, its publisher, Bloomberg, seem to want to happen at least.

The final nail for X's coffin, could just hide the final nail for Apple, if this makes Elon make Tesla Phones...

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