The Website Hacker News Is Afraid to Discuss

> Your karma doesn't reflect the score expected from the blogger behind the top #3 website of HN. This should tell us something.

Karma's a reflection of how much someone uses HN. Glancing at his account, it looks like he has never submitted anything before this article, and almost never comments. That account having low karma doesn't really tell us anything about him, beyond that he's not a HN regular.

You know this comment made me realize something. Apple and Meta are basically in an escalating Cold War. Apple recently singled out Meta as the number one requester of privacy-sensitive APIs and beneficiary of EU-mandated broader access for 3rd parties. Meta responded by calling Apple “anticompetitive“ and lobbying for government intervention.[1]

So let’s consider this comment with that in mind:

* Meta is pissed off it doesn’t have more user data access inside Apple’s walled garden

* Meta makes more affordable VR glasses

* Meta released a high quality, developer friendly AI model

In other words, these are all Meta-friendly points.

I’m old enough to remember the Mac vs PC days when people would get utterly tribal on the internet about it. Maybe that’s where HN is at now. You can see why a startup focused third party developer community might lean towards busting open walled gardens.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/apple-meta-european-union-digital...

For anecdotal feedback I'm taking myself as an example, although I don't flag, I just don't upvote anymore.

(At the same time I think there is a flag problem on HN. I'd recommend /active for a better view into HN discussions.)

Historically I should be your target group, I'm a Mac user since it was uncool (and tribal), I think I have DF in my subscriptions since NetNewsWire 1. But I'm just not interested anymore, I fell off as a regular reader.

Partly it is topical: I'm rather disinterested in inside baseball or opinions on journalism on Apple. "Claim Chowder" as a concept should have staid in the 2000s, I think. My Apple interests are more in the technical details or in the opinions of the wider Indie Devsphere or how people use their technology. Hence Michael Tsai's blog is my favourite Apple blog.

And where you touch an Apple business aspect I'm often baffled by your reasoning. That your Apple-vs-EU-opinions are rather outlier opinions I don’t need to recap, although I found the tone of your language sometimes going in an off putting weird direction, almost as if those Europeans should not allowed to give themselves laws.

But even when I share the complaint of a critical article of yours there is a fundamental disconnect. Taking your recent "Rotten" post: You closed the article with the hope of someone berating the lower ranks of Apple like Jobs did with MobileMe. I found that sociopathic by Jobs then and I find the suggestion absurd today. Telling the slaves to row harder has never motivated someone, I think.

And even if, the software problem at Apple is managerial. Senior management invented the annual releases, probably for the Christmas season. Senior management started to announce features in advance, pushing them back more and more in the release year. Senior management releases features before they are ready. In my opinions the directly responsible individuals are Federighi and Dye, as good as that hair may be. And for all of it: Cook himself.

Plus: Apple's position has fundamentally changed. Instead of an upstart, it is a trillion-dollar-behemoth. That changes how we look at the company. And the company has deeply changed, like all tech company they become more vertical and insular in their services (“Feudal” is a wrong metaphor, historically speaking, but it goes to an emotional truth). Why should we root for them anymore?

Recently I tried helping someone to get a file from a PC to their iPhone. The best options were either weird file sharing services or an USB stick like a barbarian. I blame Apple. I remember a time when computers could talk to each other, based on shared, open technical standards. Of course I blame Apple.

What's the most sympathetic way to state your position? E.g., I'm struggling with "I'm angry because I can't make money off of iPhone users the way I want to" that just doesn't sound sympathetic to me? Does it to you? (This may just be a conflict of values again, i.e., it sounds entitled to me to want to have equal access to sell your products to all smartphone users, regardless of their choices, that sounds super invasive to me in fact.)

Also be curious what you think of console makers like Nintendo who have a similar approach regarding revenue cuts and access as Apple? Specifically why is there so much hate at Apple using this model but not Nintendo?

I used to read DF semi regularly, like many others I didn’t always agree with the opinions but broadly I appreciated the thought and effort that went into them.

I stopped abruptly when posts and tweets became (to me) shockingly pro Israel and excused/justified/diminished the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

I understand the situation in Israel is complicated, and there is a strong relationship between the US and Israel, but as a citizen of a former occupied nation I can not stomach any attempts to rationalize the genocide happening in Palestine.