Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

191–200 of 452 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you draw a line between abusing and feature? If Apple didn't position itself as privacy-focused, then not allowing other browsers would be clearly violation, but if this is basically part of the product description - and many people buy iPhones in the first place because they don't want or case about other browsers - they want safety - why should Apple be forced to do it?

>Where do you draw a line between abusing and feature? When there's articulable harm. Microsoft forcing the junk that was IE, and all their other thuggish tactics, is articulable. The differences between chrome and safari are insignificant enough that you'll bore most people when trying to superficially explain how pretty much the only people negatively effected are advertisers, who have been avoiding their public re…

Maybe I'm wrong and there are consumers that harmed by the lack of chrome or Firefox on ios

Well, developers of modern web apps can offer a qualitatively better experience on those other platforms in some ways than they can with iOS Safari. The offline working features are one clear example. The use of open (=> cheaper and sometimes better-performing) standards for things like audio and video content is another.

Unless you contend that the only reason any web developer ever uses the features available in other browsers but not iOS Safari is to abuse or exploit users, in other words that no-one is (or would, if Apple supported them) make any legitimate use of those features that would improve the user's experience in some way, it is clear that users are materially disadvantaged by the limitations of iOS Safari, unless they have the choice to use another browser that does offer those features instead.

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

#193
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?

Have citizens participate in writing legislation instead of deferring to a small entrenched elite? I believe our elders called it Democracy. Nowadays they call it decentralization.

> I believe our elders called it Democracy.

Direct government by the people is sometimes called demarchy, in contrast to democracy.

“The rule of the people has the fairest name of all.”

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

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem with Google is their popups... I.E.: If you are not using Chrome, and visit Google.com, they will let you know. That is how they got so many people to switch to it.

fwiw, I just started using MS products again and they do the same thing. I'm not switching because I tried them and Google still has superior products

You think chrome is superior to the new Edge Browser which is based on chromium?

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their busin Depends on how you define “marketplace”. Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. Is their one store the marketplace? It takes considerably more effort to go t…

> It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website. That seems like it must be true - Going to Lowe's instead of Home Depot takes getting to know a different store layout, and likely at least an extra half hour if you still have to go to HD. But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you…

> 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 everything. Over time I have shifted to using them less and less.

However I think it’s just a matter of consumer maturity. Apple Pay has done a lot to make it easier for me to buy from 3rd party websites. There is a lot of money to be made in services to help the rest of the web be more competitive to Amazon. We are just at a certain stage in the cycle.

That’s what concerns me about getting the government involved. These ‘monopolies’ have arisen very quickly - on the order of a decade. Things can change in the marketplace just as fast.

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

#196
post #150
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebKit on iOS has special sandbox privileges not available to other user frameworks. I think it allows it to spawn other processes, and do special stuff to increase its performance and decrease energy consumption. 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. Not sure of Apple’s full motives, but I think this…

> 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…

> 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.

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

#197
post #52
post #15

I support anything that makes life harder for the FAANG style companies - I'm just never going to believe that the US house will do what this article signals they do. Facebook and Twitter are profound influences on politics. I look on the politically aligned mainstream news, practices like gerrymandering, the general state of political discourse, do some quick joining of dots and ... well. Political involvement isn't…

I'm not an american so can you explain if Facebook and Twitter actually have bigger sway than obviously partisan news media like Fox News? (At least in our part of the world that media seriously outstrips any kind of influence FB and Twitter yelling has.)

It's hard to measure. It's part of a network of feedback loops. There's no good way to single out any piece of it.

Fox News pumps legitimacy into it. It's explicitly partisan but done in the style of a conventional news broadcast. That helps normalize and smooth the echo chamber that comes from the generalized outrage machine of social media. That allows the extreme wing and the supposedly moderate wing to coexist, while slowly shifting the Overton window away from the latter and towards the former.

So there's no way to say which is more important. They use each other, not always in ways that they like but ultimately towards keeping them pointed in the same direction. The combination is so much more effective than any of them alone, while simultaneously having enough redundancy that you could remove any one of them but quickly reroute around that damage.

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

#198
post #179
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example: Amazon doesn’t seem to care about fraudulent sellers and fake paid-for reviews on its platform.

That’s an example of poor service. Not them harming consumers. Do you know whether Walmart.com or Aliexpress are any better?

actively looking the other way in presence of fraud on your platform is only 'poor service'? goalposts moved to the moon.

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

#200

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…

>How does Amazon harm consumers? I mean precisely, how?

but burying alternatives, they basically drive smaller product competitors away, reducing their sales and their ability to grow and innovate.

Amazon has been blatantly copying products that other brand sold, and made them cheaper. Great for consumers if the only thing you care about it price.

Because the game is getting rigged and Amazon products will always be more prominent, no-one can compete with Amazon on these products.

You end up with less competition and less choice. Amazon can just undercut you, push you down in their listings and get the lion's share of any product type they find lucrative.

Certainly not all that bad but where do you imagine this is going if no-one else is able to compete with Amazon?

Amazon is already king and has power of life and death on countless businesses that rely on it being an impartial party so they have a chance to sell their ware.

Post reply on HN