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

Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 784 posts

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#641

Post by troyastorino »

wongarsu wrote: post #635
lquist wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect. That is an avenue of leverage. Currently driven more by corporate interests than citizen interests.

"democracy" literally means "rule by people" or "government by people". You are in effect claiming that America isn't a democracy (which may or may not be true, sometimes you look suspiciously like an aristocracy in disguise). Anyway, over here in continental Europe democracy mostly works. And when people complained about privacy issues for years and Facebook laughed in our faces we eventually got the GDPR. That's ex…

America is not a democracy — it is a constitutional republic with democratic elements. America has democratic election of representatives, the the lawmaking is done by those representatives, not directly. California’s proposition system is an example of true direct democracy.

The constitutional part is important too — it limits what people, and their representatives, can do even if they have a majority.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#642

Post by solinent »

dcgudeman wrote: post #639
kops wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I be worried about the branding? Or the fact this behemoth of a company is buying it's way into every corner of my life. Close your eyes and imagine a few drones trying to see everything you do in your apartment. That's what it is. This ain't the internet I ordered :-(

You don't have to own or use any of Google's products.

Unless they manage to monopolize communication products. Snail mail has been doing well for me, I guess.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#644

Post by nloladze »

sah2ed wrote: post #437
cletus wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Sundar has no more vision than Larry does yet somehow is paid $200m+ a year and in my mind is the most unjustifiably overpaid CEO by a huge margin. At least Larry founded the company and contributed to turning into the behemoth it is. Sunday is a random associate product manager who somehow managed to ride the wave of Chrome to somehow becoming CEO.

> Sundar has no more vision than Larry does yet somehow is paid $200m+ a year and in my mind is the most unjustifiably overpaid CEO by a huge margin. Do you have a source for this? My understanding is that this $200m figure is a multi-year figure to keep him at Google. I wouldn’t characterize him as random though. Larry seemed to like him because he is able to handle conflict very well.

Just like Presidents, you cannot judge a CEO's job till the aftermath. That and after only deep introspection. Few cases bar exception, i.e. Steve Balmer.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#645

Post by martyvis »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #263
windexh8er wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point you're missing is everyone levels up. Even amateur fitness users want a better fitness wearable. Which is why Garmin and Apple have the lion's share of the market. Fitbit is still seen as a step tracker level device, even if they do more. Garmin wearables are laser focused to the workout market and most buyers seem to lust over the idea of needing a more capable fitness device. Garmin and Apple both…

Apple Watch battery lasts a day at most. My Fitbit can go without a charge for 6 days. Fitbit offers sleep tracking.. Apple Watch doesn’t natively, and even if it did, you still have to charge it at night. Fitbits are more minimalistic. They’re so nice. I don’t want a Garmin wearable. A lot of people who use Fitbits don’t use them for the fitness aspect. We use them to avoid the sedentary lifestyle by viewing our ste…

All that as well as the great GPS capability. I have the Fitbit Ionic and start the Walk exercise when bushwalking ( hiking). It produces very accurate track logs that I can use for mapping when I return. It does consume more battery but far less than high rate logging on the phone

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#646

Post by newsbinator »

dcgudeman wrote: post #639
kops wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I be worried about the branding? Or the fact this behemoth of a company is buying it's way into every corner of my life. Close your eyes and imagine a few drones trying to see everything you do in your apartment. That's what it is. This ain't the internet I ordered :-(

You don't have to own or use any of Google's products.

If your friends & family own or use Google's products, that's already a lot of overlap onto your life.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#648

Post by chipperyman573 »

dang wrote: post #436

We changed the URL from https://twitter.com/JonErlichman/status/1190252267406069760 to an article which adds at least a little more information. The press releases are https://blog.google/products/hardware/agreement-with-fitbit and https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-relea...

I see you replying to these threads sometimes, and you usually say "we" did thing. Are these decisions actually being made by a team and you the (possibly self selected) community lead? Or are you just saying "we" as in "I, someone whose actions represent the desires of the mod team, did thing"? Just curious, I've never had a problem with your changes.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#649

Post by muro »

mlindner wrote: post #596
muro wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Google's privacy policy: We don’t share information that personally identifies you with advertisers, such as your name or email, unless you ask us to

Except that statement is just wrong and misleading. Your personal identifying information is all the metadata that can be aggregated and intersected to directly identify you, your name just is a number in the database but it's directly identifying and tracking _you_. Google doesn't care about selling your name or email, that's not valuable to them or advertisers. And "unless you ask us to" is the default behavior of…

"unless you ask us to" - it's defined in the privacy policy and clearly says it's due to the user taking an explicit action.

Re: Google Buys Fitbit for $2.1B

#650

Post by wongarsu »

troyastorino wrote: post #641
wongarsu wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"democracy" literally means "rule by people" or "government by people". You are in effect claiming that America isn't a democracy (which may or may not be true, sometimes you look suspiciously like an aristocracy in disguise). Anyway, over here in continental Europe democracy mostly works. And when people complained about privacy issues for years and Facebook laughed in our faces we eventually got the GDPR. That's ex…

America is not a democracy — it is a constitutional republic with democratic elements. America has democratic election of representatives, the the lawmaking is done by those representatives, not directly. California’s proposition system is an example of true direct democracy. The constitutional part is important too — it limits what people, and their representatives, can do even if they have a majority.

The house of representatives is directly elected, same with the senate. While the laws are not directly voted on by the people, they are indirectly voted on by the people by their choice of representative. After all if direct democracy was the only valid form of democracy it wouldn't need the qualifier "direct". The constitution is an important part of limiting abuse and channeling everything, it can be changed with a two-thirds majority. So the citizens can change the constitution by choosing representatives who want to do so, and we still have democracy.

Similarly when electing the president people vote for a person who will vote for the president. While it is a weird system, in essence the leader is chosen by the people.

Calling only direct democracy a democracy would be weird, by that standard a country pretty much can't be democratic for purely practical reasons (though Switzerland comes close)

Post reply on HN