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Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

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Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#181

Post by visarga »

mr_toad wrote: post #94
blub wrote: post #2

Worth reading even for those who already read the NYT review, as it nicely explains the timeline of how we got into this situation. Fully agree that Google and Facebook are mainly to blame. As an example, Google's success in surveillance and pacifying critics through open source trinkets almost definitely convinced Microsoft to try its hand at the same game. And now the two biggest operating system developers are spy…

> Fully agree that Google and Facebook are mainly to blame. Let’s not ignore the complicity of their users. You can live without Google and Facebook.

> Let’s not ignore the complicity of their users. You can live without Google and Facebook.

How, when your work place often requires that you use their products? They expect you to be on Slack, then you got to have a phone and laptop and use the company blessed authentication portals (also handled by Google and the likes) to log in.

And not just work, also simply living in your city will require it. Who calls a cab by voice anymore? At some point I am sure there will be no way to do it. I have never seen a cab radio device in my city for many years.

Not to mention that your friends will have you in their contacts, images, comments and emails, which are hosted on Google and FB whether you like it or not.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#182

Post by Semaphor »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #140
tokyodude wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the most random thing ticked me from Google good toward Google evil yesterday when I discovered an Android app can choose whether or not youre allowed to take a screenshot. (I'm normally iOS but have a Pixel 2 for testing) Apps imo should not have that control. It's my phone. I should be able to capture what I want. I shouldn't need to get out another device to take a picture of a bug or record a transaction for safe…

I agree, but this battle has already basically lost because of DRM requirements for streaming video: I don't think you can take a screenshot of a Netflix or Amazon Prime video on any platform.

Just tried it. It's perfectly possible to take a netflix screenshot on windows.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#183

Post by emptyfile »

elliekelly wrote: post #99
contingencies wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My CEO in the mobile video space explained the rise of smartphones to me very simply: economically, it was about transferring ownership of the customer from the carrier to the device manufacturer. Apple doubled down and broke the established mold by demanding ownership if carriers wanted their devices. Google whose entire house of cards is based on the web advertising model, had to respond. They responded by providin…

This is so true. Even on iPhone. I was recently traveling abroad and lost my debit card so I cancelled it. I had a credit card for the remainder of my travels but I wanted to wait to replace my iTunes/App Store payment with my new debit card number instead of my credit card. Well when Apple tried to run my disabled debit card for my monthly fees (Apple Music, extra iCloud storage space, etc.) the card didn't work and…

This sounds totally insane for someone who never bought a single smartphone app.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#184

Post by mirimir »

grigjd3 wrote: post #176
humanrebar wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is assembly and freedom of speech add up to freedom of group speech, including unions, political groups, ethnic groups, and so on. I don't know why corporations would be special groups without that right. But, yeah, corporate personhood and bailouts need to be revisited. It's too bad that we need to have a functional policital culture to make any significant changes like that.

Corporations exist to limit the liability of owners, in particular to decrease risk to owners. Given that owners of corporations are given such special treatment, it makes perfect sense that such an organization does not inherit the rights of the citizens that are protected from the results of the corporation's actions.

Yes. And recall that, in the US before that late 1890s, only public-interest corporations were legal. Because that was the tradeoff for the ability to arbitrarily concentrate capital, with limited-liability. If a corporation violated its public-interest charter, it could be dissolved.

But then the railroad corporations got big and rich enough to buy off Congress and the Supreme Court. They got human rights before women did ;)

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#185

Post by walterbell »

adventured wrote: post #131
rib3ye wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I see the problem, you can still access everything you've paid for to date, I think it's fair. If you were to leave stuff with a storage company and let payment lapse, they would hold it as collateral until you paid.

The problem I see with it, is the parent is claiming their app store access was entirely bricked. The physical storage company holds your stuff - and eventually liquidates it - because you're paying to rent that space and your stuff is inside of their physical property. You aren't paying monthly rent to access the app store when you buy an iPhone, that's supposedly free to access (the parent mentions not being able t…

Is it possible to use the iOS app store without ever entering a credit card, i.e. only using free apps?

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#186

Post by paradoxparalax »

busterarm wrote: post #103
busterarm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess ending compulsory military service, safety inspecting our food and opposing entirely state-controlled education systems are the negative core of capitalism then. Who knew.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any expressed opinions on Friedman, but it's interesting to see someone criticized by political opponents on both sides who fundamentally misunderstand everything he said and stood for. This persisted through his whole life and obviously after his passing as well. At his core, Friedman was fundamentally about a person's right to choose the direction of their own life. That's it --…

Econonomic freedom is not essential to attain political freedom, or "essential" here is fuzzy, or whatever is being called economic freedom here, and whatever is being called political freedom here, has probably suffered a terminology contortionism. Mind you, I am not a fan of unnecessary rhetoric patrolling, for example, if someone says "Bezos built AWS" I think is ok, I understand perfectly that the commenter wanted to say that he gave the order to the employees to build it, not that it built it with his own hands. But some things can be toxic, when unintentionally reverberated.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#187

Post by coldtea »

chii wrote: post #47
ezoe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't overestimate the customer. "I don't like Google Maps and I deleted it. Now I can't see the map! Fix it now!" "I see. There are competing map services available." "That's not the map I want. I want the map!(Google Maps)" "You can use a browser." "Browser? What is it? I simply want to use map!" "If you really wan to use the Google Maps from the app. Then you have to install the app called Google Maps" "I don't un…

> I don't like Google Maps and I deleted it. Now I can't see the map! i mean, is it common for a user to hold contradictory thoughts like that?!

Ever spoken to a user?

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#188

Post by paradoxparalax »

busterarm wrote: post #154
Arn_Thor wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except, "my freedom ends where your freedom begins", so there are limits. And if we translate that to the real world all kinds of sticky "conflicts of freedom" emerge, especially between businesses and society.

That's what all the lords and kings used to say. "This freedom nonsense is too tricky for you all to manage yourselves, let us hold on to it and take care of it for you." Freedom is a messy thing. It not only needs to be used carefully, but nurtured. Misuse of it does not mean we should have less of it.

That's very dangerous what you are saying right there. It is more then obvious that your freedom to walk in my street's block, to exist(your freedom), depend directly on the limitation and curtail of my freedom to shoot you with my shotgun. Your freedom is killing my Total and Absolute freedom. Do you want to give me Total freedom?

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#189

Post by ionised »

busterarm wrote: post #103
busterarm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess ending compulsory military service, safety inspecting our food and opposing entirely state-controlled education systems are the negative core of capitalism then. Who knew.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any expressed opinions on Friedman, but it's interesting to see someone criticized by political opponents on both sides who fundamentally misunderstand everything he said and stood for. This persisted through his whole life and obviously after his passing as well. At his core, Friedman was fundamentally about a person's right to choose the direction of their own life. That's it --…

For someone so pro-freedom he had plenty of nice things to say about mass-murdering Augusto Pinochet and his fascist Chile. Seemed he was pro-tyrant as long as it was a pro-free-market tyrant.

Friedman and Hayek are two idealogues that I believe civilisation will look back very unkindly on.

Re: Thieves of Experience: How Google and Facebook Corrupted Capitalism

#190

Post by MRD85 »

Bombthecat wrote: post #156
ezoe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't overestimate the customer. "I don't like Google Maps and I deleted it. Now I can't see the map! Fix it now!" "I see. There are competing map services available." "That's not the map I want. I want the map!(Google Maps)" "You can use a browser." "Browser? What is it? I simply want to use map!" "If you really wan to use the Google Maps from the app. Then you have to install the app called Google Maps" "I don't un…

Had a friend working in first level support. He told me stories once in a while. And it sounds pretty close... From our point of view it sounds idiotic. Even sometimes narcissistic. But in there world it makes sense, because they have no idea how those two actions connect.

I convinced my 60-year-old parents to get themselves landline internet since they had been sharing a really small mobile data allowance. The landline enabled them to have things like Netflix. They had owned a smart TV for years with no internet...

Anyway, mum calls me up because she's having issues with getting Netflix to work on her TV. After a bunch of troubleshooting trying to help her over the phone, I asked her to reinstall the Netflix app. She goes silent. She didn't have the application installed, she had been trying to run Netflix on her tv by using an internet browser to go to the Netflix website and watch shows that way.

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