191–200 of 219 posts
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I can't take anyone that views regulation as universally evil seriously when history is full of stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radithor
Evidently HN doesn't like this particular history...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44508062>
The Radithor reference is of course quite apropos, and I'm a fan of effective and principled regulation to avoid that and numerous other market failures.
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Not just would, DID! And they got so fed up with eating food that make them sick that we passed the Food and Drug Act! You can vote with both your wallet and _you actual vote_.
The entire snake oil industry was thriving and customers loved buying stuff that did nothing at all . It took a hundred people, including young children, dying in sheer agony from a 100% preventable poisoning by a "medicine company" who's business was essentially dissolving off the shelf medicine powders in liquid and selling the result to really regulate chemicals meant for human ingestion. It took a president with…
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Sorry, but it's CUS-TO-MERS. They buy stuff that can only be controlled via an app talking to the cloud. They buy stuff that cannot be repaired. They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs, for an "unbelievably good price". The customers go for the cheapest, all else be damned. Education in general, and about critical thinking in particular, could help.
Sorry, it's not. Latest example, Canon's phone app for its cameras, for GPS tagging, remote shutter, transfer to phone, didn't require any Internet access, but now they changed it to require an online login for no reason. Oh and that login only works with chrome installed. So miss me with this caveat emptor libertarian fantasy land ("openly lies about its specs" is the buyer's fault?!)
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BitTorrent → Local Media Player App Still the best way to watch movies and shows. Even if we pay $100 dollars every month to streaming services they will never not be too dumb to know how to make a convenient player that isn't hostile to its users.
What is your local app of choice? Do you sync between devices?
- Kodi on a TV that has been stripped of as much of Google as I could find, streams from the shares
- VLC on my PC, streams from the shares
- VLC on my phone which is always VPN'd to my local network and streams from the shares
- VLC on iPads on which I usually drag and drop some shows/movies ahead of time so I am not wifi-dependent
A big part of why marketplaces like Netflix and Steam got so popular is because they provided a low-friction way to consume that was even easier than piracy. It seems like the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction now- it's often easier to copyright infringe than to watch something the legit way, even if you pay for a subscription that grants you access. Great example of something that's illegal but no…
This is no joke. I tried watching the latest episode of Plur1bus on Apple TV+ on my laptop and here's the steps I went through: 1. Start chrome, navigate to tv.apple.com, click on the #1 show of the day (no problem) 2. The site tells me I can sign up for the TV service that I already have instead of offering a play button. 3. I click on the "sign up" which pauses for 10 seconds then tells me I'm already subscribed wh…
I don't understand Netflix's decision, but I'm long past caring about things like this. I've had PCs hooked up to all of my televisions for the past 15+ years because of how limiting and frustrating using any other device to play media from can be.
A big part of why marketplaces like Netflix and Steam got so popular is because they provided a low-friction way to consume that was even easier than piracy. It seems like the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction now- it's often easier to copyright infringe than to watch something the legit way, even if you pay for a subscription that grants you access. Great example of something that's illegal but no…
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As with so much technology, the technology exists in part to provide a service to the customer, but more and more it exists to direct the customer into the behaviors desired by the technology owner and its advertising partners. This isn't always so evil or insidious, but the point stands that Netflix (or almost any modern service) doesn't want you to do what _you_ want with your devices. It wants to direct you toward…
The problem is, opting out doesn’t provide signal by reallocating market share. It just shrinks the market.
A big part of why marketplaces like Netflix and Steam got so popular is because they provided a low-friction way to consume that was even easier than piracy. It seems like the pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction now- it's often easier to copyright infringe than to watch something the legit way, even if you pay for a subscription that grants you access. Great example of something that's illegal but no…
How much easier do you want it to be?