391–400 of 635 posts
> while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its "pay or consent" advertising model, which requires that European Union users pay to access ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram Wait, isn't pretty much all web content is like this nowadays? You have to buy youtube premium to avoid ads, how is it different?
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I think you make many good points. Slight tangent: Why isn't EU more concerned about TikTok? While it is very difficult to prove, various studies have demonstrated that TikTok pushes more content favoring the Chinese Government (CCP).
Actually, the problem the US had with Tiktok that was it did not censor people from talking about Palestine https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-tiktok-ban-linked-isra...
No doubt that it became an argument by some more recently, but it was just another straw on the already broken camel's back.
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It didn't start with the iPhone. What the iPhone brought was a different interface and user experience. For the rest, Nokia's "dumb phones" already had MP3 players and all sorts of media (games, videos), downloadable apps, access to the internet, photos, and video recording. They only lacked touch interfaces. Of course, this was done along with other manufacturers like Sony Ericson, Motorola, Samsung etc. The behavio…
> It didn't start with the iPhone. Disagree, but continue... > What the iPhone brought was a different interface and user experience Lol. Yea, that's 99% of the entire thing! It's why Android was building a Nokia clone the day before the keynote, and the day after the keynote they changed direction HARD in panic. > They only lacked touch interfaces. Well that's not true. They did in fact have touch interfaces too. Ju…
> They were less the start of the smartphone revolution than PalmPilot or the IBM PC.
With this in context, you claim that hardware built for productivity was more of a smartphone revolution than the devices that created a market by offering the same benefits, features, and user behaviors we have nowadays (mainly media and entertainment) - let's continue.
> Lol. Yea, that's 99% of the entire thing!
I don't get how that's 99% of a thing.
> Well that's not true. They did in fact have touch interfaces too. Just that it wasn't capacitive. And the entire interaction model sucked, the APIs sucked, the graphics sucked, the screen sucked, etc.
This is the confusing part, here you agree with me that the "dumb phones" had all the main set of features and software in place, but the experience just wasn't as good as the iPhone. All the user behaviors were there.
> There was no wave before BECAUSE the products before were so inferior.
Here I'm not sure if you're claiming that there was no demand for Nokia, Motorola, SE, etc devices? Because if that's it, that's just silly.
> It's maddening that people don't get this. The difference between utter crap and a great product isn't checkboxes on a feature list. It's a thousand tiny details that seem insignificant, and CARING about those things.
Again, this makes no sense. Apple did things differently, but how does that show that the other brands didn't care about their products and user experiences? Have you seen the number of Nokia devices that were released catering to different users?
Every time someone launches something better or different than Apple, means that Apple doesn't care?
I find it hard to follow your logic. Like, the mobile phone market was created by a few brands, which built habits and connected people, ultimately bringing entertainment to their customers (the wave) - yet you believe the Palm Pilot started the Smartphone revolution, not the guys who built the market over decades.
The odd thing is that you're implying that what Apple did with the iPhone could have been done at any point in time prior to 2007. Why didn't Apple do it with the iPod, while others were already using interactive menus with graphics? They didn't care..?
I understand you're passionate about the subject, but I don't understand your point of view. To be clear I'm not saying "Apple didn't do anything special" - they shifted the experience of mobile phones for the better.
But to say that Nokia, Motorola, SE, and other brands contributed less to smartphones than the Palm Pilot is just silly imo.
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Just never in a logically consistent manner.
and usually in a context where the concept they are thinking of (the constitution) doesn't apply (anywhere that isn't the government)
> Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple's App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases. To me, this is the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after. It is unfair that Apple restricts Netflix from telling it's users that they can sign up and pay for Netlifx…
>the most easily agreeable part of what the EU has been after It's also probably the most dangerous for Apple. It creates a cash incentive to push people outside of Apple's walled garden and show them what's outside. I really really hope Apple gets its act together, they are the greatest "the user experience comes first" company and they actually have great hard tech but they show signs of rent seeking behavior which…
You don't understand the term "rent seeking". Because in this case, it's Apple's competitors that are rent seeking by utilizing the force of the government to make Apple give competitors access to its private but non-monopolistic ecosystem.
I think that Apple should call that bluff and leave the EU.
Which in turn will increase public pressure on the EU, but not as functionally as it would in a democratic system.
All hollow talk. It will lose all of its aggression the moment that Apple leaves the EU, and EU citizens are left with the remaining options.
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They're a gatekeeper in the same way YouTube or TikTok is. They control access of businesses, in this case music labels, to the final customer.
That's not really true. You can easily switch to Deezer, Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, YouTube Music, etc. You'll have access to just about the exact same library of music. You can't just ignore YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Marketplace and still have access to the content they gatekeep.
The DMA is about disintermediation of businesses from customers on large platforms with business and non-business users and durable user bases.
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> would collapse millions of small businesses How? And do they have the right to exist if their only income is targeted ads?
How do you expect small businesses to acquire customers? Spending tens of millions of dollars competing in generalized ad space to reach the same audience they can reach today with $1000? Most small businesses that exist today would become nonviable overnight , and that is a huge chunk of the economy. Sure, you can say "they shouldn't have the right to exist" because they use targeted ads, but I have yet to hear a so…
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Exactly. While DMA does not apply, GDPR does. But it gets ignored and weakened by decision against the letter and the spirit of the law - which does not surprise if you realize how much power those legacy publishers hold. Not so FB, not here at least. So it's not exactly the same regulation but pretty much the same situation. I'd also be pissed.
GDPR does not purport to outlaw targeted advertising. It just purports to require that the target consent. In pretty much every other area of law in most of the world (including Europe) consent can be bought--the party requesting consent gives the consenter something in exchange for consent, and will not give that thing unless consent is given. But under the rulings from some regulators that doesn't work for GDPR. Co…
Exactly. As it is now they're practically encouraging publishers to use dark patterns to trick users into "agreeing" to tracking.
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That's not really true. You can easily switch to Deezer, Apple Music, Tidal, Qobuz, YouTube Music, etc. You'll have access to just about the exact same library of music. You can't just ignore YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Marketplace and still have access to the content they gatekeep.
The DMA doesn't care how easy for final customers to switch. If it did, Chrome wouldn't be designated a gatekeeper given how easy it is to switch to Firefox or brave or a dozen other browsers. The DMA is about disintermediation of businesses from customers on large platforms with business and non-business users and durable user bases.
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As an American who thinks free speech is one of the most important rights we have, I wish the answer to your question would be a collective "yes" but unfortunately it is not.
In America free speech is always limited to what "I find acceptable". There's an infinite number of things that lots of Americans will find unacceptable. Swearing is beeped/censored everywhere (even on youtube), songs release "explicit" and "clean" versions, nipples are blurred on TV, some words you can't say even in an educational or karaoke setting (N-word, R-word, etc.)