EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms • Hacker News Board

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#841

Post by oblio » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:17 PM UTC

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #267

silon42 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was true when consoles were offline only and games on physical media... I'm not investing into newer ones unless they can do the same.

I agree with the sentiment, but in my experience that's just not true. [1] The PS4 and PS5 are nice and pain free. The Switch even more so, because the games will run right off the cartridge without needing updates. They have available updates, but the version shipped on the cartridge is 100% playable. [1] With the exception of the XBox because Microsoft can't get their shit together.

> The PS4 and PS5 are nice and pain free.

Are they, though?

Turn them off for 6 months, 1 year, then come back to them.

Wanted to play Fifa with a friend that had a... PS4. OS update, game updates, the whole shebang. It wasn't much better than Windows + Steam.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#842

Post by oblio » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

quitit wrote: post #785

archagon wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely this logic can be extended to lock down all computing devices? Moreover, if I had the choice, I would never trust a giant multinational corporation to be the sole gatekeeper of my digital life.

Desktop computers remain less restricted because one can’t close pandora’s box after opening it. The fact that we have so many of these protection on smartphones is because of lessons learnt with desktop PCs - after a steady stream of viruses, ransomware and other forms of scams. What should have happened is a change to how approvals were made on the app stores for the European region, not removing the main source of…

> The fact that we have so many of these protection on smartphones is because of lessons learnt with desktop PCs - after a steady stream of viruses, ransomware and other forms of scams.

These things we can solve with better tech, such as sandboxing & co.

And no, you will never solve social engineering.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#843

Post by ericmay » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #559

dijit wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be perfectly fair here, you're responding as if "productivity" means "Code" and that's not exactly true. For the overwhelming majority of people: coding is not productivity. What is? Checking email, jotting down notes, recording meetings and transcribing/dictating them, joining meetings and having reliable video/audio. Being able to respond to an email with a little drawing is _absolutely_ a killer feature for pro…

This misses the problem. Countless, countless, countless iOS devs, even extremely high-profile ones like Marco Arment, can talk all day long about problems they've had with App Review and the capriciousness of the App Store. Tons of high-profile, reputable devs can talk about specific apps they were making or wanted to make, never saw the light of day, not because the apps violate App Store policy, but because App Re…

You're just shifting the target from one monopoly app store that's high profile to a dozen or so (maybe fewer) app stores who will also have their own arbitrary rules and moderation.

You might say, well at least they have alternatives from Apple. Sure, but then if those alternatives are sufficiently good competitors we likely lost all of the privacy benefits and so forth from the Apple App Store and they'll have their own arbitrary review practices and retaliatory nature. And if they as good of alternatives then most likely the majority of these apps with "problems" are just scam artists and should be rejected anyway except now they can thrive on people who are susceptible to being scammed.

To me this is a little bit like having a debate over the First Amendment where I'm kind of sitting here and saying yea you shouldn't be allowed to yell fire! in a crowd as part of the amendment from the start and others are just asking for maximum freedom of speech, only to have this legislated later anyway.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#844

Post by ericmay » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #323

kuratkull wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more likely that this would technically mean suicide for Facebook (or whoever would try this). And if users actually follow then the bet paid off and the users deserve what's coming to them. I don't see this happening in the real world though.

It also makes assumptions that consumers are dying for Facebook, when engagement in the product has been mixed, especially with the reputation of the company dropping precipitously over the past six years. Heck, even Instagram is beginning to show signs of trouble: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/16/technology/instagram-teen...

Facebook owns a few properties, including WhatsApp. But I think you are envisioning a high switching cost, whereas I think it would just be a simple download and install of the Meta store. You'll probably purchase products using a Libra derivative too. There wouldn't be very high switching cost for customers, and they'll rapidly click through privacy prompts (if they happen at all) with no Apple ostensibly looking out at all for this. At that point it'll just be up to government regulation.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#845

Post by oblio » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:49 PM UTC

s1k3s wrote: post #89

I can't make up my mind if this is good or bad. On one hand, FAANG has a huge advantage over anyone else on the market, but they did build that product and they did spend their own money to do it. I'd be curious if there are any other occurrences in history of something so big ending up regulated by the government?

> I'd be curious if there are any other occurrences in history of something so big ending up regulated by the government?

Repeatedly:

Railroad companies.

Oil and gas companies.

Electricity companies.

Phone companies.

Movie companies.

You'll see a recurring theme here, most of those became what we now call utilities. Once something is so big it acts like a public good, it either gets regulated as one, or outright becomes a public good, i.e. a state affiliated/owned enterprise.

Shareholders are a limited set of the population and their interests can go against the interests of the general population, so we basically make everyone a stakeholder.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#846

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 1:59 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #572

vorpalhex wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market, through competition.

That already happened when the consumer bought an iPhone instead of an Android phone. Is there supposed to be fractal competition all the way down?

For the “competition will select for the best option” to be the case, yes.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#847

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #512

vorpalhex wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is an insane amount.

Did you research Apple's costs for running the App Store, screening apps for security, etc., before making this blanket statement? I'd wager not.

Do you seriously believe all these things are big expenses? They barely do any screening.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#848

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

GlitchMr wrote: post #299

reaperducer wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple locks out so many useful kinds of software For someone who doesn't have a personal Android phone, what useful software is out there that I can get on an iPhone? Related: What mass-market software is out there that isn't available on the iPhone? I don't mean *nix tools and niche game emulators. Things that would make many people actually care about alt stores?

- Web browsers with ad-blocking and plug-ins (Apple currently requires all web browsers to use system Webkit with very limited APIs). - Game cloud streaming services (xCloud, Stadia, GeForce Now). - Unofficial clients for websites such as YouTube that add features that official client doesn't have. - Tools to disable advertisements in applications. - Programs licensed under GPL as Apple App Store bans those.

Also, torrent clients, anything that could perhaps be used for piracy, anything even just very slightly pornographic or considered that by Apple.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#849

Post by raxxorraxor » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:15 PM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #565

dingleberry420 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, it won't be legal for Apple to void the warranty for this.

The concern is not a voided warranty. The concern is tech-illiterate users being able to install some random app they found on the web. They find a special version of Facebook and install it, and now their phone is compromised.

The solution to that is teaching tech illiterate people not to do that. At some point you have to accept the reality that not every advanced system can be made safe. The approach to not have advanced systems is not sustainable. You end up with Candy Crush OS that negatively affects everyone. In my opinion people get scammed by that too.

In reality Apple could just implement a dummy mode. I bet a lot of people would decide against that an be completely fine.

Re: EU approves legislation to regulate Apple, Google, Meta, and other tech firms

#850

Post by runako » Wed, Jul 06, 2022, 2:21 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #597

runako wrote: post #588

If app developers now will have access to the Secure Enclave, I sincerely hope Apple ships this as an EU-specific version of the hardware. I actually do like having hardware that can be (more) trusted, at least in some cases.

I think you have a grave misunderstanding of how hardware-based security coprocessors work... Maybe look into how Windows/Android handles similar models using TPM?

Thanks for that, do you have a link that provides an intro?