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U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#221

Post by zepto »

traib wrote: post #217
zepto wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does literally every single other platform manage this? AFAIK none of Android, Windows, the many Unix-like OSs, even Apple's MacOs have such restrictions on browser apps. They don’t. All of those platforms are less secure than iOS.

> All of those platforms are less secure than iOS. Do you have a source for this statement, specifically in relation to browsers? Let's consider Android. I wouldn't automatically assume that using Safari on iOS is more (or less) secure than using Chrome or Firefox on Android - they are all provided by well known tech companies with years of expertise building browsers and a focus on security.

Android is definitely less secure than iOS, you can easily verify this by googling.

Controlling the execution environment is part of iOS’s defense in depth strategy. Focussing on browsers alone is a red herring. You have to look at the whole system.

It’s true that Google or Mozilla may be able to produce an equivalent level of security in a browser engine, but that’s a false comparison, since alternative browsers are not limited to just these companies.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#222

Post by simion314 »

jjk166 wrote: post #209
simion314 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". 50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is…

> "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". I'm currently on chrome on my iphone. Maybe you can't install arbitrary browsers, but you can certainly install different ones. And there's always jailbreaking.

Chrome is a bit more then a skin and you know it and I am sure you can't expect to trick competent people with this argument. If iOS would implement PWA then some native applications could be implemented as as PWA and Apple would lose money(I don't believe the security or privacy excuse either, a PWA will always have less access then a native app)

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#223

Post by zepto »

mindslight wrote: post #218
zepto wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. I think there is truth to this since I personally for a long time would go to Amazon for everythi…

We can look at general principles and see problematic couplings and incentives. In fact we could do this ten years ago before the problem grew so large, but there was no political will. For example, by bundling product sales and web UI, what Amazon (et al) are doing is making it so that customers have to use Amazon's software to shop Amazon (and conversely they're prevented from using software of their own choice). O…

> Amazon (et al) are doing is making it so that customers have to use Amazon's software to shop Amazon

This is true of almost all online stores and nobody is proposing legislation against it, so it’s not at all clear what you are saying.

Government mandating APIs seems like a fatally destructive move against software freedom forever.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#224

Post by zepto »

baq wrote: post #213
zepto wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they “actively looking the other way”, or is it just hard to detect when there is so much money involved?

i don't know, do you?

So you just made up a bullshit accusation to discredit Amazon based on no evidence at all, and then claimed I was moving the goalposts?

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#225

Post by foobiter »

skystarman wrote: post #74
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just whatever marketplace, anti-monopoly legislation focuses on markets where the players own a significant share of the full market. In the case of Amazon, it seems like they have above 52% of the e-commerce market in the US in 2019 ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c... ) so probably it's even higher now. When one player now has over half the market, you need to carefully watch w…

The standard for antitrust enforcement for decades has been when the action of a company harms consumers. How does Amazon harm consumers? I mean precisely, how? Amazon is one of the most highly rated companies in the US by its customers. Its NPS score is 69 and 70 is considered "world class". I can get almost anything online shipped to my house the SAME DAY. If Amazon sends you the wrong item they'll let you keep the…

NPS is gamed so hard with dark patterns that it’s completely unreliable as a metric... I worked at a sales driven company and the lengths they went to push the score up despite actual customer feelings was borderline fraud.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#226

Post by traib »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #189
traib wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. Okay so WebKit cannot be used as is, but then why forbid other alternatives [1]? Seems like a Catch-22. > It seems like an engineering challenge to expose these features to arbitrary 3rd party frameworks in a way that doesn’t allow these features to be abused. How does literally every single other platform manage this? AFAIK none o…

What prohibited browsers are you referring to?

I was mainly referring to how every browser app on iOS is forced have Safari underneath. The wiki page on Firefox for iOS [1] mentions this in some detail - it cannot use Gecko like it does on desktop and Android, it must use WebKit instead.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#227

Post by magicalist »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #175
magicalist wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic is trying to strong arm their way into a position of power against steam and apple so they increase their take off the casino they've filled with children. And Apple has the moral high ground wanting a cut of proceeds because they make it easy for children to get to the casino? Not a great analogy.

Apple has a better record on this than every other company I can think of. So it is actually a good analogy. Perhaps Epic didn't want to abide by these rules and used the fees as a cover? https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/94213

> Apple has a better record on this than every other company I can think of.

Rent seeking on things you find immoral?

> Perhaps Epic didn't want to abide by these rules and used the fees as a cover?

Is this something Apple has alleged? Because otherwise it looks like you're speculating wildly to appeal to emotion. "It's ok because maybe they're bad people."

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#228

Post by simion314 »

ericmay wrote: post #151
simion314 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". 50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is…

Depends on how you look at it. Are we comparing operating systems? Then we have a duopoly and should regulated Android as well. Are we comparing phone manufacturers? Well, there's a ton of them, Apple just competes and does the best. > Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores I can't sell anything I want at Wal-Mart. Doesn't PayPal not allow porn sites to do business? I don't see how this is different. >…

- consoles, I am against their locking too , there is less complains about them so far since people can jailbreak them and their mostly media/enterteiment devices, but again I don't agree with the locks on consoles either

- monopoly, duopoly is not that important, you can have 3 big actors in a market that are cooperating against the users for their own interests, so the market share is irrelevant and the abuse/damage is relevant. Is Apple not allowing say 10 million users to install some app because of political reasons or 50 million users to install a game because some other policy reason? This people were affected , for example Joe did not know when he bought his iPhone that Apple can block his favorite game , or some app , is friend Bob has Android and he side loaded it, Joe is pissed now and feels tricked because on the box it was not printed that Apple can abuse his trust like this.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#229

Post by mindslight »

zepto wrote: post #223
mindslight wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can look at general principles and see problematic couplings and incentives. In fact we could do this ten years ago before the problem grew so large, but there was no political will. For example, by bundling product sales and web UI, what Amazon (et al) are doing is making it so that customers have to use Amazon's software to shop Amazon (and conversely they're prevented from using software of their own choice). O…

> Amazon (et al) are doing is making it so that customers have to use Amazon's software to shop Amazon This is true of almost all online stores and nobody is proposing legislation against it, so it’s not at all clear what you are saying. Government mandating APIs seems like a fatally destructive move against software freedom forever.

I'm proposing it and saying it would be a better remedy than whatever regulatory-capture-ripe "reform" they're proposing is.

I actually like house brands of stuff, when compared to the thousands of gensym brands. The problem isn't marketplace companies privileging their own brands - it's with singular companies owning the marketplace to begin with.

Humans are creatures of habit, and the way to make it so we aren't in the habit of just buying everything from $Amazon is to replace that with the habit of buying things through non-affiliated aggregators. I'd rather have one familiar UI showing me (Amazon Basics, Zoro Select, HDX, etc), than multiple UIs each showing me the same "competing" gensym brands.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#230

Post by fakedang »

skystarman wrote: post #153
IgorPartola wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-pressures-small-busine... Amazon Reportedly Pressures Small Businesses with Retaliation if They Don't Hand Over User Data

Again, how does this harm consumers?

Smaller businesses get eaten up, resulting in a bigger Amazon with greater monopoly powers, that harms consumers with shittier goods and less choice.
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