471–480 of 764 posts
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The answer has to come from anti trust legislation. Android is too big for Google to control.
Under what law is that a legal or ethical thing to do? Why not suggest ios be taken away from Apple as well and windows from Microsoft?
I want Google to lock down their platform. Hardcore locked down. So locked down you can't do anything with it at all. Because people need motivation to do something hard. Android has been a bloated walled garden for years. It should have been like a PC w/Windows or Linux: anyone should be able to make an app (any way they want), publish it, let anyone who wants to download it & run it. But that was never the plan. Th…
It's not very hard to imagine? Most people don't expect that level of control anymore; their desktop just updates with whatever corporate slopware is pushed out seasonally. Websites come-and-go. It's not a hugely motivating rally-cry for average person.
> We need to kill Android. And from the ashes, make a new platform that works for us, and not for a corporation's profits and anti-competition.
Android is the best-working part of that equation. Microsoft supported Android apps on Windows Phone. Jolla supports Android apps on Sailfish OS. Linux supports Android apps in Waydroid. You don't have to "kill" Android as a runtime or smartphone OS; just force Google to compete with 3rd party ROMs.
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Yes, because “bigstrat2003” said so. I work for a 1000+ consulting company and no one uses email for internal communications. Even for company wide messages leadership uses Slack. Heck even when we first start a project we either federate (or whatever you call it) the client’s Slack workgroup with ours or we ask to be on their Teams channel. Before working where I worked now, I worked for the 2nd largest employer in…
I email my dad documents and photos I need printed (and he uses his work office's laser printer). I forward the billing statement I receive monthly from my family's ISP to my mom via email. And I'm "Gen Z"
She is a retired high school math teacher - been retired for 30 years - and she has used every popular word processor/suite from the original AppleWorks for the Apple //e and she was tutoring friends kids and helping them use GSuite and PowerPoint until 5 years ago.
She uses her phone for everything and she has up to date computers a couple of printers on her network and two ISPs just in case one goes out. She kept the legacy DSL account that’s not available to new subscribers and she has cable internet.
It is a disgrace how Google has managed this situation. To recap the storyline, as far as I understand it: last August, Google announced plans to heavily restrict sideloading. Following community pushback, they promised an "advanced flow" for power users. The media widely reported this as a walk-back, leading users to assume the open ecosystem was safe. But this promised feature hasn't appeared in any Android 16 or 1…
Why does there seem to be a growing push to tie real-world identity to nearly everything we do online? The justification is almost always "safety". I know this trend has been developing for years, but over the past couple of years it feels like it's accelerated globally.
Later we got a new one: to reveal Russian shills/propaganda bots
Now we also have: to filter out AI slop
Any problem the internet experiences will eventually become an excuse to eliminate online anonymity.
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2FA is a requirement in Europe. I can't log into my bank account without my phone being able to run the app.
I would stop using bank requiring phone app to do banking, simple as that, both my main EU accounts use sms verification codes and extra password, which is fine with me. If they will require an app, they will lose customer.
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I agree, but that isn’t a good argument to offer to the entities bigger and more powerful than me. Governments and companies feel a pressing threat of a trump-like populist overtake in each country. They need the bots, fake socials and slop stopped yesterday. An abstract degradation of freedom of speech isn’t going to cause pause. There is a national security argument that I think is more likely to help, at least for…
The irony in this line of thought is that by stifling anonymous speech and enabling censorship, countries will usher in their own reactionary movements as dark money is globally spent on platforms to push paid advertising advancing reactionary rhetoric. It's already happening in the UK, Germany, France and Spain. Right-wing populism isn't what's being banned here, it's dissent. Platforms are happy to take domestic an…
This “fix” just routes people through official channels but those channels aren’t exactly proving to be worth the term walled garden. My YouTube adverts lately border the quality of early 2000s piracy sites, it’s honestly baffling how little they value their own product in their willingness to take anyone’s money.
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Because phones keep tracking us and stealing our attention. And everybody should have the option of open computer systems
So exactly how do you think an “open phone” will keep you from being tracked when you are tracked and can be triangulated via cell phone towers?
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If this finally pushes adoption of truly open Linux phones, then this will end up being a good thing, and the greatest favor that Google could do for the open source community. Tragically, Linux phones have languished and are in an absolute state these days, but a lot of the building blocks are in place if user adoption occurs en masse. (Shout out to the lunatics who have kept this dream alive during these dark years…
It won't though, because there's a ecosystem of banking/insurance/whatever apps that have bought into the android/iphone lockdown mindsete that people will simply be locked out of. Open alternatives can grow when there is a viable means of slow growth, and cutting off the oxygen to such things is the implicit intent.
Decentralized banking is the future!
INB4 someone mentions some edge case like 'grandma got scammed' or refunds.
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Because phones keep tracking us and stealing our attention. And everybody should have the option of open computer systems
So exactly how do you think an “open phone” will keep you from being tracked when you are tracked and can be triangulated via cell phone towers?