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

Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

proton.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 665 posts

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#71

Post by pscanf »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #24

Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their pro…

> if you make the platform that others run on and which creates entirely new economies and allows businesses to thrive, don’t you get to define the constraints that you want since it’s _your_ platform?

Intuitively, this feels right to me, but I think that in this case my intuition fails, because I think of this "right" from the perspective of a person. "They made that thing, it's theirs, they have the right to decide what to do with it."

I don't think the same right applies to a company, though. Especially one so big that it has a significant impact on society, and so big that it's entirely driven by the incentives of capitalism (and not, for example, by a founder's ideals).

In this context I see companies as amoral automata whose only goal is maximizing profits, regardless of the wider consequences of their actions. This seems to produce very good results for the societies in which these companies operate, but it also comes with some side effects. By putting constraints on what companies can do, we can reap most of the benefits and avoid most of the side effects.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#72

Post by _benton »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #37

Living in the US, I trust Apple with securing my communications (I don't have high security needs). I don't exactly trust third party developers. So, three no need for me to use something outside of Apple's apps, unless its something that don't provide. If these apps could prove they were better, id consider them, but all these lawsuits just sound like inferior products trying to force themselves onto a platform they…

This is exactly what it is. They're trying to force Apple to design an inferior (imo) product so they can make more money.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#73

Post by cosmic_cheese »

bitpush wrote: post #54
BowBun wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory Don't you think this is _maybe_ an overstatement? I was annoyed about this for years but reading your take is borderline satirical.

From the lawsuit > For example, when a user purchases an iPhone, the user is steered to use Apple’s default email product, Apple Mail. It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings that a user can change her default email application away from the Apple “Mail” application towards an alternative like Gmail (Google) or Proton Mail. > At least for mail a user can in theory modify the default setting. On the calenda…

I mean, does Settings > Apps > Gmail (or whichever other app) > Default Mail App really qualify as “a complex labyrinth”? Sure, it’d be a good thing to add a “Default Apps” section under Settings > General or something, but calling the current route complex almost sounds like an insult to users.

EDIT: Actually, there already is a “Default Apps” section right at the top of the page of Settings > Apps. Yeah, if that’s a “labyrinth” then the assumed level of user intelligence is quite low.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#74

Post by msgodel »

m463 wrote: post #63
Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

Actually, iMessage happily harms apple customers all the time. I know many MANY people who have lost chats with their loved ones (especially deceased ones) because there is no way to export and save their conversations. I think this should be as easy as saving photos, which apple makes (somewhat) easier to export. Back to email, it is pretty horrible to set up my local email server on an apple device. You have to go…

[flagged]

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#75

Post by freeone3000 »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #24

Apple and Proton are two companies that I personally like, but the claim that the internet descended into surveillance capitalism because of the walled garden approach of the App Store is an argument in bad faith. Even if Apple allowed other app stores or payment methods, that would not have stopped Facebook and Google from capitalizing on user data to sell ads and manipulate public opinion. They would give their pro…

I find the platform should be separate from the device. Google Play is a platform, but the device can run whatever. iPhones, the platform is the device, unnecessarily.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#76

Post by jeffbee »

bitpush wrote: post #54
BowBun wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory Don't you think this is _maybe_ an overstatement? I was annoyed about this for years but reading your take is borderline satirical.

From the lawsuit > For example, when a user purchases an iPhone, the user is steered to use Apple’s default email product, Apple Mail. It is only through a complex labyrinth of settings that a user can change her default email application away from the Apple “Mail” application towards an alternative like Gmail (Google) or Proton Mail. > At least for mail a user can in theory modify the default setting. On the calenda…

The "complex labyrinth" is only reinforcing the impression that you and the author of that brief are both cranks. "Email" is the top setting under "Default Apps". My iPhone doesn't even offer Apple's Mail app in that screen, probably because I deleted it, which also was not labyrinthine but actually quite trivial.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#77

Post by Velorivox »

_benton wrote: post #62
TulliusCicero wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to keep your own device locked down yourself and to only use Apple's own app store if you want.

If they have to make changes in software to allow an "unlocked" device that makes it inherently less secure.

Exactly. Jailbreaking is WAI for the folks who want the “Android experience” on an iPhone. Much of this drama is merely corporations vying to “get theirs” from the ecosystem, without understanding that the extant nature of the ecosystem is why it is the most valuable platform by user spend (that is to say, they care little for the consumer).

Shouting "monopoly" from the rooftops is not enough to affect real change. If I wish not to pay property taxes, my options include moving to another state, but courts do not recognize a general right to challenge tax liability on the grounds of personal preference or disagreement with taxation. Perhaps it's worth sparing a thought as to why, and who ultimately empowered that stance.

Plus, this is often the “if I can’t have it no one can” line of thought, sometimes from companies engaging in anticompetitive practices themselves (like Epic Games).

Edit:

WAI stands for working as intended

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#78

Post by bitpush »

_benton wrote: post #66
whstl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shouldn’t it have the right to control who or what interacts with it? In their own machines they can do whatever they want. Once they sell it to you, not anymore.

Are you legally prevented from controlling your device in any way you wish after purchase? I think people are conflating ease of modification from legally being able to do so. If it's legal, then Apple retains no control over the device.

> Are you legally prevented from controlling your device

The bar isnt whether it is legal or not. You know that no company can create laws, and either you're saying it out of ignorance, or willful ignorance.

When Walmart drives away mom and pop shops, and dominate a certain town and then hikes the prices for groceries, you cant say "but it isnt illegal to go buy groceries from elsewhere, what did we - Walmart - do wrong?"

Say it with me - monopoly rules are about consumer choice.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#79

Post by energywut »

bitpush wrote: post #70
energywut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage I think you might be living in a bubble, if this is the "most evil" thing you have heard of a big tech company doing. Go read up on IBM's history, especially in the 30s and 40s. Or a more contemporary example, read up on Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Or Amazon's mistreatment of workers in both corporate and…

[flagged]

> Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash.

Which lawsuit PDF related specifically to iMessage interacting with Android was mentioned in this comment? I see a comment about RCS.

Now, maybe you are right, maybe I narrowly interpreted RCS in iMessage to mean chat bubbles, and there's a wider interpretation. Even still, there's no possible way that's the singular most evil thing tech has ever done. The OP is free to be anti-Apple, more power to them, but like, let's be real about levels of evil.

> Also, bringing up IBM, Microsoft or Facebook is "whataboutism".

It's absolutely not whataboutism. The claim the OP made was about Big Tech broadly. Bringing in examples of Big Tech doing evil things is a direct and appropriate rebuttable to the argument that Big Tech doesn't do evil things.

Re: Proton joins suit against Apple for practices that harm developers and consumers

#80

Post by zahlman »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #39

I don't think any big tech company has ever done anything as evil and predatory as Apple walling off iMessage, giving the impression that Apple phones were high technology, and interacting with peasant androids is what made group chats fragment and pictures and videos look like trash. Few things are more enraging than people being left out of chats with friends and family because they didn't bend over for Apple. Even…

Or you could use an actual program on a desktop computer to do it. When did everyone forget how that works?
Post reply on HN