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Comment by spenrose | Hacker News Reader

I suspect it's driven by the Olde School Linux / Free Software contingent of HN commenters / voters. Here is an example[1]:

"The #1 story on Hacker News at 2023:08:21T15:41Z is a 2021 discussion of Linux desktop packaging tools. Hypothesis: HN story up-voters are heavily drawn from Free / Open Source Software folks interested in issues that were broadly discussed in "tech" two decades ago (Linux for the desktop!) and are much less broadly discussed today."

That anodyne observation garnered 5 downvotes. I mean, of course it was silly to treat Linux desktop packaging tools as the most important story in tech in 2023! Overall the dynamic feels like Wikipedia: people who participate are atypical, and nothing annoys them more than one's pointing out that they are atypical.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211129

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I agree, and expressed something similar in another command on this thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43493805 that HN is trending more and more from a general site for software/hardware makers, and more towards a Linux/OSS specific site.

That's a notable trend overall, but not really a problem on its own. Every community is inevitably going to lean a certain way.

But it doesn't really explain the anger. To be blunt, most of the comments criticizing DF/Apple in this thread sound unhinged to me, e.g., like Apple goes around living in these folks head rent free. I have difficulty understanding that mindset with something you can so easily avoid just by buying a product from another company? E.g., there are countless companies whose values don't align with my own, so I don't use their products, and that's the end of it. Why are these folks spending so much of their energy on hating this company that they can so easily avoid? And why is it just Apple that garner's this hatred, e.g., why not Nintendo for example, a company with a similar approach overall (closed, emphasis on product experience over specs) for example.

> like Apple goes around living in these folks head rent free

Not rent-free. 30% in the App Store. And 100% in the PWA they don't let me ask users to install.

Are you saying these things make you angry at Apple? I.e., I'm still having trouble understanding, e.g., why not just make software for the many other platforms that are more aligned with your values? E.g., if I made games, I'd probably ship on Steam and not even try to ship on Nintendo, but I wouldn't hate Nintendo for that, I'd just target platforms that I'm more aligned with. I'm just having a hard time picturing hating another platform for having values different than mine when there are so many options available, why not just focus on the other options?

> I'm still having trouble understanding, e.g., why not just make software for the many other platforms that are more aligned with your values?

I want to make software to users of smartphones, not to Apple users. There is nothing related to values. Gatekeeping the whole apps ecosystem for their own profit isn't a value anybody should share besides the shareholders.

What's the most sympathetic way to state your position? E.g., I'm struggling with "I'm angry because I can't make money off of iPhone users the way I want to" that just doesn't sound sympathetic to me? Does it to you? (This may just be a conflict of values again, i.e., it sounds entitled to me to want to have equal access to sell your products to all smartphone users, regardless of their choices, that sounds super invasive to me in fact.)

Also be curious what you think of console makers like Nintendo who have a similar approach regarding revenue cuts and access as Apple? Specifically why is there so much hate at Apple using this model but not Nintendo?

Why do you think criticizing Apple's predatory strategies comes from hate? Do you hate everything you think it is bad? The sympathetic way is to not take disagreement as hate. Why do you hate people that dislike Apple's way of doing business? Do you hate everybody that dislike things you love?

About Nintendo, I don't develop games nor play them, I couldn't care less about what the market leaders do.

As an Apple user, I'm happy with the gatekeeping, it's why I use their products, and frankly I want more of it. If it was up to me I'd like to see them enforcing their human interface guidelines a lot more.

Why can't you just develop for Android or Palm or Windows and be happy while leaving us alone to enjoy what we like? Can you at least appreciate the irony of calling Apple greedy when your main beef is they get in the way of you making money?

My hypothesis is that about 300 people whose identities were formed by participating in the Slashdot / LWN / etc. communities c. 2000-2005 are active HN participants in 2025. They saw the dream of Linux beating Windows fail—and worse, they saw Macintosh become the high-status alternative to Windows. They saw the Olde Internet of hand-coded web sites be swamped by the arrival of humanity using smart phones, and they hate it. They are like 60 year old sports fans upset about the rise of analytics, or '70s rock fans bemoaning hiphop, or Socrates berating scribblers for displacing orators. Evidence: the 400-point popularity of dozens of recent stories on Firefox minutia—Firefox does not matter, nor does Brave (note: I worked for Mozilla for four years). The many, many stories about reviving the pre-smartphone Web. Probably other topic clusters I am forgetting—Web standards?

There are also a lot of older Windows users, and users of failed platforms from the 80s and 90s, that absolutely hold deep seated anger at Apple and Steve Jobs. There were similar attitudes about Microsoft and Bill Gates in the 90s. After Gates left Microsoft a lot of that vitriol seemed to have dissipated, but some still aim it at Apple. The anger seems to usually be economically rooted, i.e. in terms of how Apple charges high prices for their hardware.

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