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Comment by floydnoel | Hacker News Reader

Well, perhaps you'll thank the EU for it. I personally hate the cookie banners (that don’t do anything to stop ad tech) and the annoyance of needing new (expensive) cables for no real reason. I had very nice cables which worked great for years, that was fun to explain to the wife. And now the car stereo doesn't work through a wire to my phone any longer.

The last thing I want is another App Store. I enjoy the privacy and security of its payment disintermediation. An App Store from Facebook or Amazon is just going to be 'yet another spying apparatus.' No doubt employers and schools will be demanding their use soon.

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1. Cookie banners allow for informed consent. I like to see which companies are abusing my data, and take the extra couple of clicks to stop them from doing that.

2. USB-C cables are ludicrously cheap and massively preferable to needing to hunt for the Apple-specific proprietary cable. Not sure why you had to explain the purchase of a $2 cable to your wife.

3. Freedom of choice means you are free to continue using the walled garden, should you wish, but others are also free to explore alternatives which is currently impossible.

> USB-C cables are ludicrously cheap

Shitty USB-C cables are ludicrously cheap. Quality cables are merely not expensive, and when you have to replace them in quantity [1], it leads to a decent amount of money having to be spent to replace otherwise perfectly fine non-USB-C cables and a whole bunch of electronic waste as those now-obsolete cables make their way to the trash bin.

— [1] I easily have over a dozen and a half Lightning cables between the ones in my bedroom, my living room, my laptop bag, and my home desk. At ~$10-12 for a pair of braided Anker USB-C replacements, I’m looking at nearly a hundred dollars to replace them all.

For charging, you don't need quality USB-C cables.

And don't tell me lightning is quality, I've seen my friends consume them by the dozen.

Certainly the Apple cables aren’t quality. Or perhaps the better word is durable. The jacketing on the cables is a joke and gets worn through by a swift breeze.

Third-party cables, for whatever connector, you get what you pay for. Is it a shame I have a good number of lightning cables that I will have no use for in the near future? Yes.

I also have countless other cables that I longer have use for. I still haven’t been able to fully remove micro-usb from my life but we’re getting close and I’m glad for it. It would be much nicer to only have one type of cable in my bag, that’s for sure.

10/2*15 = $75

And presumably you only have to replace them if you replace your phone? It's not like the change came in and you had to rush down the shops straight away for new cables.

I’m not sure how you got 10 from “a dozen and a half”; 18/212 = $108.

Also, to your second point, because of the EU, everybody* who currently uses Lightning will be replacing all of their cables eventually. That’s money out of pocket sooner or later. Maybe it’s easier to swallow when it’s $12 every three months instead of $100 all in one go, but the sum doesn’t change.

I got 15 from a dozen and a half because I'm stupid and halved half a dozen. 10 was the lower bounds price. Anyway, $108 on cables. We're not breaking the bank here. You'll probably get to keep those cables for quite a few years. The waste bothers me more. I'm still stoked to have a single charging cable standard though.

3.) that’s not exactly true. Currently, you can choose for an open system or a walled garden in which you can’t be de facto blackmailed in to leaving the walled garden. With this so called freedom of choice you mention, I am no longer able to choose for a true walled garden. If I rely on certain apps that are moved to their own store, I am forced to go there and break the walled garden. Ergo: my choice is taken away from me. For completely arbitrary reasons.

As it was you had choices as a consumer; open, closed - whatever you want. But the thing I deliberately want to choose for is now taken away from me through one of the worst and most unfair business laws I’ve ever seen, that only does harm to the majority of consumers whose choice is taken away and whose privacy and safety is being weakened to destroyed. But “they have a choice to stay in their walled garden” (they just can’t use their phone the way they want and were always used to anymore if they do, but we don’t mention that part and we don’t care those millions of people are getting royally screwed over).

You know, true choice could’ve been achieved if the EU had made a fair law. They didn’t and now we as consumers are going to pay a very heavy price.

I should point out that even with android being way more open, big apps are on the playstore

The cookie banners are an unfortunate side effect of some pretty good data handling policy.

> the annoyance of needing new (expensive) cables for no real reason

A USB C cable is like $5 and one with a built in dac is $20

And one capable of safely charging your computer is $50. Yet they all look exactly the same.

Mandatory USB-C charger is awesome. With one power adapter I can charge everything! Laptop, phone, power bank, Bluetooth speaker, ever car seat for my child (yes, car seat nowadays have a battery).

I hope everything will be with USB-C, all home appliances as well.

> I hope everything will be with USB-C, all home appliances as well.

I'm not sure I want a kettle pulling 2400w over a usb cable

Does your kettle have a separate charger? What connector is there?

USB kettle is not a joke you can find plenty on Amazon.

But I'm thinking about cordless appliances: shaver, toothbrush, vacuum cleaner, etc.

My kettle is a boiler wired under the sink. But a normal 2400w kettle in countries with 240v outlets plugs into the wall. It's not really the kind of appliance you want battery operated either.

My toothbrush is already USB charged. I think for those small / battery charged applications you mentioned we'll get there pretty soon.

- There is no cookie banner law, only an informed tracking consent law. Companies could follow the DNT header. They don't. They chose to inflict the banner on you, the worst way to comply to the law they could find, and managed to make you blame a pro privacy text for their choice.

- Apple changed cable without the EU once and would have changed again (remember the 30 pins?). They even didn't bother providing one at a point. At least this way we all get a uniform version that is cheap and can charge non phone devices.

- "yet another spying apparatus". Apple is one of the biggest advertiser in the world, and was part of the PRISM program. Their genius is to make you believe they don't spy on you. And noone force you to use the alternative store. That's called choice. Something I know Apple users are not big on.

If only people spent 10% of the energy they use to defend billion dollar bullies on caring about freedom.

Why does the official EU site use cookie banners then? https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en

here is the text where it explains about each cookies: the name, the purpose and so on https://european-union.europa.eu/cookies_en

i didn't "defend bullies." i just expressed my annoyance at the second order effects of the EU's diktats, which are a bunch of annoyances to me personally. i guess i should be glad i have the "freedom" to see useless cookie banners all over the net, and the "freedom" to not use my perfectly functional cables.

in my view, you’re the one defending bullies. wielding the power of the state to control free enterprise is like pointing a gun at somebody to get your way. "do what i say, or else" is what a bully does.

> noone force you to use the alternative store

i get the strong feeling you didn't really read what i wrote

>> And now the car stereo doesn't work through a wire to my phone any longer.

> Remember 30 pin?

I’ll do you one better: The first 30pin was widely deployed to all sorts of cars, and the majority of those hardwired the end that plugged in to the car. Then Apple changed the 30pin wiring while keeping the actual connector the same. The 30pin still plugged in, but it no longer charged the device nor passed audio through to the stereo.

Agreed. Postfix is hard. Best to avoid the issues in the first place. USB-C remains a thorny subject because it’s probably a net win, but there’s a lot to dislike still. No I don’r want a high speed cable just to charge my damn phone.

Hopefully you receive compensation, for the wonderful astroturfing

Huh. Odd. Most car stereos support USB. What car only supports lightning?

Or jack. Or BT.

Besides, before lightning, apple obsolated all 30-pin compatible devices.

the car has USB-A ports, but none of the half dozen USB-C cables I tried could handle the connection. I guess I'll have to continue buying more USB A-to-C cables until i find one that works, or give up the feature i had before. It's just a silly inconvenience with a smattering of e-waste.

Clearly a couple of people disliked this line of inquiry, but FWIW, I've never had any issues connecting our honda's USB-A to USB-C on android phones. But I might not be trying advanced functions - I've just used it as a media player. The jack works well to, as well as bluetooth, so those are what I usually use. At least in android, depending on your device, you might have to change settings related to file sharing over USB.

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