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You have many ISPs to choose from. There are not many "Googles" nor "Apples" to choose from.
Depending on where you live, a lot of times you don’t many to choose from. Maybe 2-3, but sometimes only one with fast enough speeds that it becomes the only option.
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> I think the conversation needs to change from "can't run software of our choice" to "can't participate in society without an apple or google account". This won't work out for you. It just turns into technically being able to, but it being practically impossible. In Sweden (i.e. basically your future), we're already there.
What's it like in Sweden? When I lived in Denmark the government had its own e-boks system for mail. I only ever accessed it via web, but I'm sure there's an app as well. Back then everything was authenticated via NemID which defaulted to the option of using codes printed on physical cards sent in the mail. I know they've moved to MitID now. Does anyone know if MitID can be installed on a de-googled device? Apparentl…
Then we have another problem. Cashlessness. There are fewer and fewer places that accept cash for payment and even if they do some of them won't have change (since it's so rare that other people are paying in cash).
I have a friend now who was cut off from the BankID (and thus cashless) system and it's quite a struggle for him. He has to constantly have other people (i.e. us) do things for him, or drive 40km to one city or another during specific hours to do things (since all the local outlets for everything closed since 99% of people do 99% of everything online now).
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Incorrect. For us as tech people this is an option. My older family members will definitely install malware and send all their data to China. Please don’t let me go back to the early days of the internet where my mother had 50 toolbars and malware installed
> Please don’t let me go back to the early days of the internet where my mother had 50 toolbars and malware installed I removed hundreds of toolbars from my mother/grandmother/anyone computer. I still prefer that to techno-fascism where it's ok for companies to brick my hardware remotely, to lock me out of all my hardware because I have a picture of my kid in a bath, to read all my messages for whatever reason, to ex…
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Even if they ban you for a reason, you're screwed. Granted, the ban may have been warranted, but you're essentially put into a societal prison with no due process or recourse.
Very true. They are effectively a new type of non-territorial state with absolutely no separation of powers or rule of law or principle of proportionality. What makes this difficult though is that they are under constant attack from highly organised and automated criminal operations that create and exploit accounts en masse. Any solution to the tyrannical state of affairs we are subjected to (even more so as develope…
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Some other examples of why this could be bad: - Running code on your car that compromises safety, like modifying/disabling legally-required safety features. - Modifying code on health devices, like pacemakers - Protective code involving things like overheating protections (e.g., firmware preventing you from disabling cooling fans in your laptop or running your 3D printer so that it catches fire) - Running devices wit…
I should be able to modify the software on all of those things, if I want to toast my CPU, my car, or my heart, that's entirely reasonable and there are tons of other ways to do them anyway
Here's the deal for you young'ns. Richard Stallman (rms) had it right on this topic and alot of people had to fight to have the limited stack we have. It's not enough though. All we can do is make all the decisions possible to keep an open stack as viable as possible - even though what we have now is woefully incomplete. We need to push for this within our teams, within our companies, within our governments, in civil…
The real problem is that @gmail.com or @icloud.com are now required to participate in society. I'm happy to use an iPhone, it's in my subjective opinion the best device on the market. My concern is that I need an iCloud account to talk to my bank. It's become nearly as powerful as my ID card.
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>“Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. Because I did. How come I can do what I want with my computer, but not my phone? Why are phones so inferior in this area? My phone is more powerful than many of the computers I've had in the past, yet I need to jump through a million hoops to use it as a software development platform. Why?
Your smartwatch is probably more powerful than some of your past computers too. Same with your DSLR camera. Even your smart fridge. These are specialized hardware+software gadgets designed to a particular purpose, which is very different from being a development platform. Same with a phone.
It doesn't have to be easy or convenient, but it shouldn't be impossible.
I think the conversation needs to change from "can't run software of our choice" to "can't participate in society without an apple or google account". I have been living with a de-googled android phone for a number of years, and it is getting harder and harder, while at the same time operating without certain "apps" is becoming more difficult. For example, by bank (abn amro) still allows online banking on desktop via…
This might be controversial but I'm not sure you should be able to install whatever you want on "hardware you own". Reason being (and I was trying hard to explore an "other side of the argument" and whether there was/is one) examples like Kindles, where I think originally Amazon had it as a loss leader to sell ebooks. I reckon they brought a great product into the market and established a new category (mass market eb…
Some other examples of why this could be bad: - Running code on your car that compromises safety, like modifying/disabling legally-required safety features. - Modifying code on health devices, like pacemakers - Protective code involving things like overheating protections (e.g., firmware preventing you from disabling cooling fans in your laptop or running your 3D printer so that it catches fire) - Running devices wit…
Most of the use-cases you listed are about modifying devices which do not run "software" per se.
Phones, more and more like computers, are becoming general purpose computing devices, which require software to be useful. I think there's a distinction that we need to be aware of.
I think the real problem is that these countries are abdicating their duty to govern. Why are they not jailing these people running these scams? Or if they are in another country, using political and economic pressure on the other country to crack down?
I don't believe that Google's intentions are actually that great, but there is a real problem in these countries with scams and people's lives being harmed by them.