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Comment by devsda | Hacker News Reader

When do we stop this instinctive response of "well you can still do it in an only slightly convoluted way" everytime a corporate does something bad.

Windows added ads - well you can disable them, if you don't like it.

Chrome brought up mv3 - well you can still use mv2, it is only optional.

Reddit locking subreddits behind login wall - well there's always old.reddit

Android moving everything to playstore - there's always FDroid.

How many of these are still true and for how long?

If someone's country is a dictatorship, it doesn't help to tell them that there are 100 other democratic countries, just move. Not everyone can emigrate or want to emigrate for any number of reasons.

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Imo if you compare what Google does to the one other mobile OS manufacturer with any users, claiming Google should be fined is something like the cop pulling you over for going 8 over the speed limit while Apple is doing triple digits and just ran two people over.

'Why not both' is an argument, but clear as day what Apple does is worse. There's no alternative.

> 'Why not both' is an argument, but clear as day what Apple does is worse. There's no alternative.

'Just start somewhere, anywhere, please' is another argument.

So let's start with the worse one.

No, that will only lead to bickering which one is worse and nothing getting done. Start with anyone. If you determine A is breaking the law then you go after A and fire anyone who pulls any "buuuut what about B" distractions.

Your reasoning shows why it's so much harder to fix a duopoly than to fix a monopoly. If there was no Apple then Google would get its comeuppance. If there was no Google then Apple would get its comeuppance. But because we have both Google and Apple, we can't punish either.

The mathematician in me wants to solve the problem of the duopoly by first reducing it to a monopoly, which we have known solutions for.

oligopolies are just as bad.

They're worse. See above.

Ironically, Apple allows alternate app stores in the EU now, while Google is moving to disallow them everywhere.

I don't think Google is moving to disallow them, it's more that the EU said that it's fine for Apple to still own app notarization / developer verification even outside of Apple's app store. Google saw this and said, cool, we'll add that to Android too so we can also get our (undeserved) cut outside of the Play Store. I can install F-Droid or anything else, but if they dont submit papers to Google, I get a big scary warning when I install it (I get the same scary warning if a developer distributes apps through F-Droid, but doesn't verify with Google, which is ridiculous too). On iOS if I don't submit to Apple I cant do anything.

It all sucks, and I'm not saying this is a good thing. But Google and Apple are both trying to position themselves as not having monopolies on store fronts, while still forcing notarization and verification to run through them independent of the store being used. And the EU seems fine with this for some insane reason. Google isn't trying to be worse than Apple, they're trying to match Apple.

Google are trying to match Apple's worst behaviour.

Next will be USA deciding that it's illegal to use the new Chinese offerings that will pop up to work around Google/Apple shittiness, because unconstitutional market manipulation goes hand-in-hand with USA's Russian-style oligarchy.

How long before Linux is added to the USA regime list of software that 'shows someone is a terrorist'.

It's also worth noting that Microsoft has been doing the same thing just in a more mob like "shame if we and our antivirus partners would defame you" kind of way instead of outright disallowing unsigned programs for now.

We both agree that there is a speed limit and it needs to be adhered to, regardless of who it is.

The problem with Google is that it may have started at 8 over the limit, but it advertised itself as sticking to the limit but always hovered slightly above it pushing the boundaries. This has skewed our perception into believing that Google's was acceptable and we have been gradually raising our threshold itself to a dangerous level.

Now Google is not too far behind Apple that it can't catch up.

Give it up. Stop defending your position when it's been pointed out that you are holding the two companies to two different standards. It's all right to admit you were wrong and learn something, even on the internet.

How do you know what standard he is holding Apple to? This thread is about Google and Apple was not mentioned.

On the contrary, defending Google by bringing up Apple in this context is about as cut and dry as whataboutism gets. What Google is doing is wrong, full stop. Anything else is in addition to and also irrelevant.

> it's been pointed out that you are holding the two companies to two different standards.

Stop making things up. Apple is garbage, too. This isn't an Apple thread.

The frog is boiling slowly.

Google is breaking fdroid in less than a month left for sideloading: https://f-droid.org/en/2025/09/29/google-developer-registrat...

Honestly still one of the main reasons why I am actualy considering switching to iPhone. Atleast with Apple I know what to expect. And as a bonus I get amazing vertical integration and probably the best aftermarket there is.

That's like moving to a gulag to get away from Guantanamo.

It's an upscale gulag, though! Very classy. Sleek white architecture, futuristic even.

https://srinagar.nic.in/notice/immediate-suspension-of-virtu...

They banned "VPN"

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/after-vpn-ban-in-k...

Then came arrests.

https://www.medianama.com/2026/01/223-jammu-kashmir-vpn-ban-...

Street level checks. Police literally stop you roadside and check your phone for VPN.

This is happening in 2026. RIGHT NOW.

I talked to some officials and "oh you know what happened in Delhi blasts? They were using signal. If we had only caught them before".

Actually old reddit doesn’t work that way anymore lol you must login or use crappy reddit, which is exactly to your point though! They will just keep making it harder and harder until you simply can’t, but by then so a few people will be “opting in/out” that they’ll argue nobody wants the ability to toggle that anyway.

I think the old reddit redirect extension gets around this somehow, that has worked for me lately (occasionally with some toggling of the extension). Although maybe it's best to just use less reddit tbh

I resigned as a mod after the API shitshow and am so glad I did. It’s a terrible site. I wind up there every month or two from friends or looking something up, it’s hard to see how much of a cesspool it is when you’re so invested in it and up close.

Not anymore :-(

But it's a good thing, actually because: - when reddit is good it's way to addictive - reddit has become nearly as bad as most other social media sites

So if they force me to use an account, I'll finally be able to kick the habit ;-)

Reddit has been akin to Facebook since around 2022.

Make that 'since forever'. But there used to be a lot of insightful discussion inbetween the facebook-like parts. (Maybe it was the same on facebook, I wouldn't know because I never had a facebook account and you can't access the site without it.)

But I deleted my account (or at least randomized my password) somewhere in 2016 or so, so apparently 10 years ago I decided I wanted out. But I'm still reading it at least as much as HN. So fingers crossed they screw up badly enough this time :-D

There is a cookie that you can set to still get the old interface without login on www.reddit.com (but NOT on old.reddit.com) which some of the deshittify-redditi extensions have added. But I wouldn't expect that to stick around - it's just there for now to soften the outrage.

sssst

You don't always need an extension to use old.reddit.com, it's an actual setting if you're logged in.

The real problem is that old.reddit.com and its ecosystem are all becoming worse and worse. Just off the top of my head, things like image galleries, message notifications, RemindMe bot, RES, /r/random, etc all have various problems and breakage.

I use redlib https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib and librediret instead.

> Reddit locking subreddits behind login wall - well there's always old.reddit

old.reddit is now locked behind login as well.

When did this start? I didn't even realize at first because I use Redlib.

few weeks ago

It was a staged rollout so there was no one start date for everyone.

There's a workaround if you want it enough.

I noticed that reddit was setting a use_redesign (I might have the name slightly wrong) cookie when I explicitly visited the old.reddit domain, and this caused old reddit to persist. Since I do occasionally want to use the new site for image posts and the like, I set up a bookmarklet to set/unset that cookie on command.

I've since found that setting this cookie bypasses the old.reddit login page, allowing me to view the old site while not logged in. No idea how long that will last though.

To what value do I need to set the cookie?

I just checked and the cookie is actually redesign_optout. The value doesn't seem to matter - I just checked with value xyz and it worked.

Here's the bookmarklet I use:

javascript:(function(){const old_or_new = prompt("[O]ld or [N]ew?", "New");if (old_or_new.charAt(0).toUpperCase() == 'N') {document.cookie = 'redesign_optout=; Path=/; Domain=.reddit.com; Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:01 GMT;';} else {document.cookie = 'redesign_optout=true; Path=/; Domain=.reddit.com';}window.location.reload()})();

Thanks, that's even better than accessing old.reddit.com!

The simple workaround to most of these walls is to create an account with your email address and phone number.

The simple workaround is to not use services that engage in such tactics.

Which is not a workaround, but giving in. And it gets increasingly difficult to create an account without giving them personal data.

There is a workaround for now. Boil little froggy, boil.

https://old.lemmy.world has no login wall!

The amount of time I've spend to turn off news and ads in Windows is absurd. Just to be turned on in a new update.

And the menacing messages of installed something from F-Droid. My mother would never do it. Even my programmers colleagues usually don't do it.

I actually think the menacing messages are on point but should apply to play store apps as well. Most of the people I know are incredibly cavalier about running mystery software from unfamiliar developers on by far the most sensitive device that they own.

The "convoluted" way is/was the default in the absence of a monopolist app store. Before centralised app stores, users downloaded or bought boxed software ad-hoc and installed it on their computers from installation archives, just like you can install apps from APK files on Android. If you banned Google from preloading their app store, isn't that what we would revert to?

On my Nokia (featurephone) you don't need to install apps, you just run them.

The goal is not to prevent a Google monopoly. The goal is to have competition to prevent Google abusing its monopoly to lock down users.

There is Samsung Galaxy store.There is Xiaomi store.There was Amazon app store which failed to gain traction as it was not pre-installed but had decent number of apps. This is even before we get to open stores like F-droid.

Now their viability is a question in the long term, if Google has complete discretion over what is allowed.

Google doesn't have complete discretion. On Samsung phones, Samsung's discretion overrides Google's. On Xiaomi phones, Xiaomi's discretion overrides Google's.

Not really. Google sets strict boundaries for smartphone brands on what they can do software-wise. For instance, iirc, shipping the phone primarily with a non-Google alternative ROM means you won't get any play services on them, even if you want to have a secondary version with a standard Google ROM.

Google has essentially full control. Because they own security updates. Because banking apps already now often do not work without Google services. Etc. Etc.

It is a monopoly (regarding Android app developers), and is increasingly exploiting that to cash in.

Actually, the phone doesn't have play services if the vendor doesn't install play services. If the vendor installs play services then it has play services.

Google must allow them to install Play Services.

They can just do it.

They already have agreements for it anyway.

> For instance, iirc, shipping the phone primarily with a non-Google alternative ROM means you won't get any play services on them, even if you want to have a secondary version with a standard Google ROM.

Is this wrong? Sure they have agreements but does it include "don't sell phones with alternative ROMs"? It's licensed software and I don't think the phone makers want to end up on the wrong side of a Google lawsuit.

They can just ship it under a shell company

> There was Amazon app store which failed to gain traction

I also heard that dev's couldn't remove apps they, for whatever reason, no longer supported. Even if the developers abandoned Amazon's app store entirely, the old bitrotted apps would still be there. The 1-star reviews would pile up, biasing users against them on other platforms.

old.reddit is also locked behind a login wall too, now!

While I agree with your point, conflating the effort to install apps outside of the Google Play Store with the effort to immigrate to a different country is wildly incomparable.

old.reddit now requires a login :/

macOS slowly ramping up the friction to run unsigned/unapproved apps over the years

sometimes people share a problem and want solutions or workarounds

other times people share a problem and just want to feel validated ("yeah that sucks dude")

it sounds like you wanted the 2nd but got the 1st

There are solutions and then there are workarounds. what we see are workarounds, not solutions.

Even in software, you can only patch so many workarounds without fixing the issue. Eventually fatigue sets in or we run out of workarounds and just publish the bug as "expected behavior" don't we?

I don't want the workarounds to distract from the need for a proper fix.

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