Hacker News Reader

thosewhoteachon Losing the war against surveillance capitalism letting Big Tech frame the debate

It is actually quite easy to make Big Tech implode from within. Declare a moratorium on issuing green cards to all big tech employees for the next 25 years. Sweeten the deal further: expedited green card processing for employees who come forward as whistleblowers.

thosewhoteachon Big Tech is taking our freedom – How Apple is making developers pay ransom money

The concept of "freedom" defined in the article makes no sense to me. It is like saying "I would like the freedom to go where I please, even if it means I am trespassing". No, that's not how it works in the real world.

>>Basecamp (DHH and Jason) can make their voice heard, but how many companies (specially the small) have faced the same thing and just succumbed to Apple’s “rules” and just had a 30% pay cut?

If you choose to use Stripe, are you taking a 5% (or whatever their commission is for your region) pay cut? Arguing for the amount charged is different, but calling it a pay cut (as if you were entitled to get that amount) is just idiotic. Remember that you are free to not release your app on the App store if you don't want to "succumb" to the rules. Is the marketplace forcing you to build the iOS app? Then blame the marketplace, not the gatekeeper. Or even better, go play a different game where the marketplace doesn't force these options on you.

DHH is acting like a whiny little baby, to be honest. How about: don't create an iPhone app. Isn't Basecamp supposed to be an amazing pioneer when it comes to SaaS? So see if you can chart a new path for others by refusing to build an iPhone app and see what happens? Will that become the new trend? Will Apple be forced to lower the commission or change these rules because everyone building a SaaS starts doing the same thing as Hey? Also, will people switch to using Android just so they can use Hey? It is not as if iOS is the only game in town.

thosewhoteachon Microsoft calls for a closer look at app stores

You mean outside of that time when they crippled your Windows 7 with perma-nagware so you didn't have any option but to upgrade to Windows 10?

https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Against-Windows-10-Microsoft-...

thosewhoteachon New Facebook tool allows employers to suppress “unionize” in workplace chat

In all fairness, it is not as if anyone is going to put up a big protest in the current economic circumstances. Not even Facebook employees can find another job easily in the current environment.

With 40+ million or so unemployed, and no end in sight for COVID at the moment, Zuckerberg can get away with whatever he wants over the next few months. "Never let a good crisis go to waste", as the saying goes.

So FB employees will follow what I call MZM - Mark Zuckerberg Method. Pretend like you care for a while, wait for people's short attention spans to automatically move on to the next big scandal, and then make the scandal of the day as the "new normal".

thosewhoteachon Most tech content is bullshit

>>The people actually doing the work don’t have time to talk about it and the people spending all their time talking about it aren’t doing the work.

This is one of the most poisonous attitudes I have ever seen when it comes to tech content, and unfortunately it is really prevalent in the largest tech companies.

No wonder nearly all the documentation created by the tech giants is complete garbage and often out of date, with almost zero regard for people who actually read the documentation.