Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 607 posts

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#541

Post by javert »

coldtea wrote: post #107
javert wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon warehouse workers also have the option not to work there. Amazon is not forcing them to be there and Amazon does not owe someone a job any more than any other business owes jobs to random people.

> Amazon warehouse workers also have the option not to work there. A, the evergreen, "since nobody puts a gun on your head, you're free to work elsewhere". Some people don't understand that limited job options, lack of skills (or money to increase them), need to feed a family, etc, are also "guns on the head". To understand how much, consider than people can sell their bodies (for sex), or even get into slave-like se…

I basically agree with you, but it's not Amazon's duty to solve that problem.

In fact, by providing one more job option, they are helping slightly.

It's the same as this old classic: Nike builds a shoe factory on a small island with subsistence agriculture and pays people almost nothing to make shoes. And people castigate Nike for that. But Nike hasn't done anything evil. They have given people one more option. If subsistence agriculture is better, people can go back to doing that instead of working in the shoe factory.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#542

Post by cameronbrown »

fulafel wrote: post #393
cameronbrown wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically: Back in the day a ton of apps used their own notification servers, with each one clashing, waking the device up, etc.. Google Cloud Messaging was then set to be the only service that could wake the device up when it was sleeping. Supposedly it batches messages and sends them at optimal times to save battery.

I'm not convinced that other network io is blocked. There seem to even be commercial competition for GCM: https://pushy.me/

It's not when the device is awake or has a wakelock. But since Android's Doze (basically deep sleep battery saving state) GCM is the only service that can wake it up.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#543

Post by javert »

dkersten wrote: post #184
javert wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon warehouse workers also have the option not to work there. Amazon is not forcing them to be there and Amazon does not owe someone a job any more than any other business owes jobs to random people.

I have family members who literally have to take whatever job they can find because their options are severely limited, even if those jobs are really bad and no job at all would probably result in homelessness. Some people really don't have the option to "not work there" and it seems rather callous to suggest that.

The Amazon plant gives people one more option that they didn't have before.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#544

Post by javert »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #105
javert wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the U.S., phone providers are protected by the government. You can't compete with them. The government has basically granted them fiefs. I feel like cars are great. I don't know where the complaint is there. There is an enormous amount of variety in cars. It's really amazing. Definitely a triumph of capitalism. I also don't really have a problem with banks. There seems to be plenty of options. People mostly just c…

> I feel like cars are great This is myopic, to put it lightly. Toyota own the three brands that are the least costly cars to maintain, followed by Honda. BMW’s cost, on average, three times as much to maintain.[1] I own a VW because I’m an enthusiast, but I drive a Honda because I also need a reliable vehicle. Some BMWs should be regulated out of existence . Rang Rovers too. I work directly opposite my mechanic and…

If you don't want a BMW or a Range Rover, don't buy one.

People want those cars. They are willing to pay a mechanic to fix them because they like them. And you have the gall to say that they shouldn't be allowed to have them?

You are complaining about the choices we have---which are amazing, by the way, compared to 20 or 50 or 100 years ago---and your solution is to use the government to force people to have fewer choices?

Certain principles are required for the economy and society to function, and you are advocating for the opposite principles.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#545

Post by UnFleshedOne »

oarsinsync wrote: post #387
mcguire wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we keep the discussion in good faith?

How do you manage battery life when multiple apps need to keep its own persistent connections open to its own home server for push notifications? How do you explain this to end users, when even tech-savvy people assume bad-faith when it's pointed out that many APIs are cloud-backed, forgetting the most obvious example of a cloud-backed API that is provided? Or, how does the mobile OS vendor perform any kind of spam p…

Android somehow solves those I think? Unless those solutions are suboptimal?

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#546

Post by javert »

cbanek wrote: post #96
javert wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the U.S., phone providers are protected by the government. You can't compete with them. The government has basically granted them fiefs. I feel like cars are great. I don't know where the complaint is there. There is an enormous amount of variety in cars. It's really amazing. Definitely a triumph of capitalism. I also don't really have a problem with banks. There seems to be plenty of options. People mostly just c…

I think the car industry is a racket because they frequently have lots of recalls that affect safety, but they often don't admit it freely. (like the Takata airbag incident) Same for requiring car dealerships, and negotiated pricing. Getting a car serviced for a recall then having to wait for months, possibly while not being able to drive your car can be a real problem. Utilities like cable / internet aren't really p…

If you look up the history of car dealerships: the whole dealership system is based on dealers lobbying the government to protect them. It's regulatory capture. The car makers hate the dealers.

There are 2 main kinds of telco in the U.S.: telephone line based ones and cable based ones. Historically, companies got each local municipality or country to give them a monopoly (literally) on one or the other. So yes, the telco industry is a pure monopoly play in the U.S.

Banks: I have no problem with what you are talking about in my personal experience, but you can always switch to a credit union. Basically all a credit union is in practice is a nice bank. That's their niche in the market summed up in 2 words.

> If you're a monopoly and the government doesn't step in, they are basically granting you a fief over that area.

Monopolies don't happen unless the government grants one (either explicitly or implicitly through regulatory capture). A monopoly is not just a giant company with a dominant marketshare. It's easy to compete with those.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#547

Post by jimktrains2 »

pvorb wrote: post #434
jimmydddd wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the computer printer industry a ways back. The printer companies tried to make this argument with respect to blocking generic ink cartridges from being used on their printers. They argued that they needed to limit to the manufactuerer's cartridges to guarantee a good user experience.

I've never had a good experience with printers, no matter the ink type.

Don't use ink, use toner ;)

I've been using a little multifunction brother laser printer and convinced my sister to do the same in college and those are the only printers I've used in a long while that don't give me issues.

The only other printers I used that never gave me issues were the high end laser printers at University.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#548

Post by Fjolsvith »

tedivm wrote: post #386
dollar wrote: post #3

The easiest way to identify a monopoly is to look at how badly a company can treat its customers and still get away with it. My company has a half dozen stories like this about Google in the last year alone. Know what Google is doing to its AdSense partners on a massive scale? They wait until your site has just under the earnings when they have to write you a check, then they terminate your AdSense account for “polic…

This adsense behavior isn't even new- they did this to me in 2005! My website had a trickle of ads, just enough to pay for my college books each year. When I went to cash out Google decided it was click fraud and stole my money, with absolutely no recourse. They're an awful company with horrible customer support. It's frustrating too, because my startup has investors who keep trying to get us to switch to GCP, but I…

And you have to wonder how Google makes their billions.

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#549

Post by Fjolsvith »

devoply wrote: post #19
techntoke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like the issue isn't so much with Google then, but that you don't believe the legal system is fair (which I generally agree), but that is a different issue entirely.

The legal system has its own objectives, for instance dissuading people from even coming to the courts, they often enough don't coincide with the objectives of the little man. Psychopaths and corporations game the system as they have no morality. There isn't all that much the system can do about powerful forces gaming it. For instance car companies calculated that the cost of paying for injury lawsuits was less than…

There's a scientific field I never heard of: Corporation Psychology

Re: Google just deleted my nearly 10-year-old free and open-source Android app

#550

Post by dmoy »

ertemplin wrote: post #456
deepsun wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I did try to fix my Amazon packages being delivered to wrong address. There's simply no way to give that feedback, yet alone receive a response.

You can call customer service and talk to a person at Amazon

Yea amazon support on the phone has always helped me out when there were shipping issues. Even when someone literally just ripped open a package and stole the contents, the lady on the phone at amazon was courteous and helped me out.
Post reply on HN