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

#911

Post by afiori » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 8:53 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #646

judge2020 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. This is the popup for app store personalized ads[0], which is a full-screen popup that forces you to choose one or the other before you can access the app. It's super transparent and easy to decline the personalization. 0: https://videoweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Apple-permi...

The only button they provide is for accepting ads. To say no, they provide a link. That's a dark pattern.

That is at most a slightly shadowy pattern, it is the equivalent of saying "please select this one".

Darker patterns would be a preselected checkbox with a ok button or a default consent with a "go to settings to update your selection".

This is a "Personalized Ads" popup with an On and Off option, it looks pretty ok to me.

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

#912

Post by dickersnoodle » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:56 AM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #670

FredPret wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the walled garden. You want a self-managed server, buy one. I want a foolproof thin client for myself and all the older people in my life

Well, get them to install AppleSafe™ , which will give them the curated Apple experience by locking out all sideloading, and requires them to call Apple and go through menus in order to remove it.

This works for me. I trust Apple a lot more than I trust some third party rando and I enjoyed watching Facebook whine about losing data tracking revenues and whiplash into Meta on their way to more people discovering that the world can live without them.

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

#913

Post by nicce » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 1:08 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #826

nicce wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as there are options (Android), then iPhone is just a product for specific group. I don’t get it why everything should be the same. Is iPhone so good the everyone is mad because they can’t sideload an app? A lot of iPhone’s success is based on to that very thing that you can’t sideload and paying is easy. Different products for different people.

If it was as limited as you say, I would agree, just use a different product. That's what I've done for years by using Android. However this philosophy is being extended to nearly everything nowadays. Apple is a leader and has proven that extreme authoritarian and lockdown works and few people will complain. As a result, nearly every company that makes mainstream products just follows their lead. For example the remo…

Personally, I agree that it has negative impact for global business strategies, if everyone follows it. If Apple success, why not them? But then choices are reduced and global state is getting worse.

But I also understand very well, why Apple has made changes.

> Apple is a leader and has proven that extreme authoritarian and lockdown works and few people will complain.

This is the major reason. We are in minority here in the HN. The most of the world is happily using their phones, and for that the business is based on. It is not that exploitative as it could be, but there is danger for that. If the App store fulfills their needs and payment is easy, people are happy. Only tech people care something more.

> For example the removal of a headphone jack, after which basically all Android makers (even OnePlus) followed suit.

This is quite natural evolution. If you look at the size from the chip this jack requires, it is natural thing to remove, at least if you want to make phone thinner and replace that portion from the chip with something else. You can use adapter anyway to continue using the jack. Charging is the only problem, unless you buy adapter which allows plugging the charger at the same time.

> apple because the hardware is nice

Until Apple made its in-house chips, it was far away from Android hardware, in terms of chips and screens. People used to select iPhone for the software and usability alone.

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

#914

Post by zackmorris » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 4:43 PM UTC

caramelcustard wrote: post #900

zackmorris wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All good points, and all controversial. We're so used to looking at everything through a capitalist lens, that any policies designed to help the average working Joe seem quaint or even downright laughable: "...there is no way to enforce any sort of responsibility..." "...Worlds history says that trying to equalize everyones skills leads to skilled workers looking for greener pastures..." "...so making companies respo…

Ah yes, the best help for the "average working Joe" – just like, make inflation even worse, create a conflict between skilled workers and non-skilled workers, make "Joe" dependent on government "freebies" and on top of that introduce another boogeyman to put the blame on. If you want to help the average Joe let them do their thing without trying to interfere at every step possible just because of someones political p…

When a prominent wealthy person goes on TV and says that they'll work to reduce or eliminate labor in our lifetime while still providing for everyone through automation, then I'll believe that capitalism is on the side of the average working Joe.

Until then, I'm afraid that we'll have to agree to disagree.

For what it's worth, your points aren't completely lost on me. I've witnessed the struggles of both employers and employees. But at this point, the power is so imbalanced towards wealth that there's no way I can endorse the status quo in any fashion.

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

#915

Post by cafed00d » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 5:01 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #875

cafed00d wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, why do I care if apple makes money over 3p devs. They’re all screwing over users in the end anyways. But historical data shows Apple has been enormously better at strong-arming devs into behaving properly. That’s why I can safely assume that $0 needs to paid to that scummy dev making a flashlight app; I mean, I can safely assume there’s no app on the App Store adding noise by advertising $1 or $10 or whate…

> As a user, why do I care if apple makes money over 3p devs. Well the purpose of anti-trust law, and pro competition laws, is usually to prevent companies from using their market power to artificially give themselves a larger cut of the profits. That is one of the reasons why these new laws passed. And all your complaints about security or whatever, ring completely hollow, if you then propose a solution that does no…

> Well the purpose of anti-trust law, and pro competition laws

Well, ordinary people don’t give a shot about this:- they just care about user experience. That’s the point, I think, you’re missing. User experience trumps any conversation about profits, market share and money. Im not suggesting that Apple is the vanguard of user experience and that govts don’t care about users at all. I am suggesting that given the precedent of the web & windows era of computing, no govt agency has thought of policing 3p devs in favor of user experience the way Apple has.

You keep complaining that I’m not providing any solutions: I’m not here to do the Govts job. I am here to vocalize my problem so that the Govts and our community can recognize a perspective. Apple’s policing of 3p devs should not be loosened up: that WILL create problems.

Heck, if you want a solution, heck, just codify the laws of the developer program into constitutional legislation. I know, that sounds ridiculous. But that’s my point. 3p devs have to be disincentivized from anti-user, criminal behavior. Not just Apple. Don’t hate on Apple just because they’re able to police them better than anyone else.

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

#916

Post by Bud » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 8:15 PM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #764

Bud wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs a tutorial on what "monopoly" means. Controlling app distribution solely within your own platform is not a monopoly. You might wish it were. You might not like it; you might want it changed. But that doesn't magically mean you can call it a monopoly. It's not a monopoly.

If you open a market in the city, prevent any others from opening a market in the city, force all sellers to pay 10-30% to you, force all product makers to comply to your dictates about what can be sold or get kicked out then it's an effective and abusive monopoly. Thankfully the EU in their wisdom has decided that Apple has abused their dominant position and we don't need to agree with your definition.

Except Apple hasn't prevented others from opening a market.

You're aware of Android, right?

It's not "my definition". It's THE definition.

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

#917

Post by dmitriid » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 8:34 PM UTC

account42 wrote: post #795

greedo wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm, Thunderbolt was developed by Intel, in cooperation with Apple. And IIRC, Apple is a member of the USB consortium. Too bad design by committee sucks and has led to the disaster that is USB-C.

> Apple is a member of the USB consortium Apple is also a member of Khronos (and so is Microsoft btw) yet decided to push their proprietary API instead of working with open standards. Membership in a standards organization makes just as much sense for a company competing with the standard as it does for one embracing it.

> member of Khronos (and so is Microsoft btw) yet decided to push their proprietary API instead of working with open standards

Which open standards? If you mean Vulkan, then it appeared in any viable form three years after Apple released the first version if Metal.

And Vulkan itself was donated by AMD because they couldn't figure out what to do with otherwise proprietary Mantle.

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

#918

Post by walterbell » Thu, Jul 07, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

utucuro wrote: post #909

walterbell wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but less bad than competitors Google and Microsoft, which do not offer comparable segmentation of notifications and telemetry. Since notifications are user-visible, one can audit for unexpected, non-notification traffic to Apple's advertised notification-only IPs.

Apple colluded with Google when it suited them before, I cannot see a reason to trust them any more than Google.

No large corporation should be blindly trusted.

If a large corporation officially advertises to enterprise customers a bounded, testable claim (e.g. traffic to these IP addresses is limited to notifications), then that claim can be subject to ongoing audit by the IT teams of multiple, independent, enterprises.

Verified accountability is far superior to trust. Step 1: vendor corporation makes a bounded, testable, claim.

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

#919

Post by stale2002 » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 3:18 AM UTC

cafed00d wrote: post #915

stale2002 wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a user, why do I care if apple makes money over 3p devs. Well the purpose of anti-trust law, and pro competition laws, is usually to prevent companies from using their market power to artificially give themselves a larger cut of the profits. That is one of the reasons why these new laws passed. And all your complaints about security or whatever, ring completely hollow, if you then propose a solution that does no…

> Well the purpose of anti-trust law, and pro competition laws Well, ordinary people don’t give a shot about this:- they just care about user experience. That’s the point, I think, you’re missing. User experience trumps any conversation about profits, market share and money. Im not suggesting that Apple is the vanguard of user experience and that govts don’t care about users at all. I am suggesting that given the pre…

> User experience trumps any conversation about profits

Ok, sure, you can have this opinion.

But the point still stands that anyone who claims to care about user experience, and yet only gives a solution that results in Apple getting more money, is giving a bad solution.

> just codify the laws of the developer program

As long as Apple gets a 0% cut of app revenue, I think that a lot of people would be OK with some of these laws.

None of this really matters anymore though. Apple lost. They are now going to lose out on all of these app store fees, for developers that go to a 3rd party app store.

And Apple should have proposed a reason solution, that resulted in them getting 0% and also solving these user privacy issues, much sooner.

But they didn't do that. And now the EU law is going to happen, whether Apple likes it or not.

> 3p devs have to be disincentivized from anti-user

And yet the original solution that you gave did none of this, and only gave Apple more money. Which means that your originally gave a dumb idea.

> You keep complaining that I’m not providing any solutions

You did give a bad solution though. You gave a bad solution that did not help users, and only gave Apple more money.

And because you thought of such a stupid idea that doesn't help users in any way, I am accusing you of not caring about users at all, and having bad ideas.

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

#920

Post by caramelcustard » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 4:02 AM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #914

caramelcustard wrote: post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the best help for the "average working Joe" – just like, make inflation even worse, create a conflict between skilled workers and non-skilled workers, make "Joe" dependent on government "freebies" and on top of that introduce another boogeyman to put the blame on. If you want to help the average Joe let them do their thing without trying to interfere at every step possible just because of someones political p…

When a prominent wealthy person goes on TV and says that they'll work to reduce or eliminate labor in our lifetime while still providing for everyone through automation, then I'll believe that capitalism is on the side of the average working Joe. Until then, I'm afraid that we'll have to agree to disagree. For what it's worth, your points aren't completely lost on me. I've witnessed the struggles of both employers an…

People say stuff all the time but tech speaks for itself. Capitalism has always been on Joe's side, wanna know why? Because unlike the alternatives, it doesn't try to hide the "means of production" AWAY from them and in fact it does quite the opposite.

"...the power is so imbalanced towards wealth." really? Never ever, in the history of mankind, had the poor have as many opportunities to earn money (and earn money HONESTLY) as today and yet there are still claims like that.

"...no way i can endorse the status quo in any fashion." I would love to hear what the "alternatives" to the "status quo" offer, other than creating government enforced monopolies, unmotivated workforce, punishing innovation through "the plan" or devoiding the people of property rights.