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I don't know, it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the co

I don't know, it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies. I am absolutely not surprised by the whining and am in no way giving these companies a pass. Something absolutely must be done to better protect user data and privacy. But babies and bath water come to mind when I read comments like yours.

rapnie 3y ago
It is a bit tangential, but this article [0] by Baldur Bjarnason sheds a light on the EU's perspective in crafting regulations such as the DMA, and how that seems to be largely misunderstood by the big US tech companies. [0] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-eu-and-tech/ https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  >Any time you see two entities of similar size fight, bet on the one that thinks it’s fighting for its life. yeah sure, but also bet on the one that can pass legislation regarding the other one.
- asimpletune 3y ago
  This was a great read. One problem that I have, at least, is that I think the eu is not understanding the tech on this one and actually violating their own, all important, single market principle. With the apple all store, there actually was just one market and a set of standards and regulations that governed it. Now, there will be x many standards. The experience on the foo app will depend on what App Store it was purchased in. If the eu had taken a more ambitious route then I could see this actually working for apple, who operates, imo opinion, under the principle of balancing what is best for the customer against what the developer can tolerate. This has created the apple ecosystem as the only one that is profitable, precisely for the same reason the author argues the eu seeks to regulate businesses. So by more ambitious I meant there needs to be a convention that governs technology along a framework akin to a technology user’s bill of rights. No stealing information, no antipatterns, cancel subscriptions with a single click, etc…
  - toyg 3y ago
    > actually violating their own, all important, single market principle Single-market perspectives only apply to EU member-states. There is no expectation of "singleness" outside the EU borders, any extra-EU standardization is just an occasional side-effect. This is the same as talking about "free trade" inside and outside the US: outside US borders there is no obligation for the US government to obey "free trade" principles, which is why they will happily apply import tariffs that would be illegal to have between US states. > apple, who operates, imo opinion, under the principle of balancing what is best for the customer against what the developer can tolerate Big lolz. Apple operates under the principle of balancing what is best for Apple against what the market will tolerate. The rest is just advertising.
    - brookst 3y ago
      Wouldn’t it be best for Apple to have complete access to users’ messages and location data to optimize ads and “personalization” upsells?
      - toyg 3y ago
        If that is a differentiator in the market that allows them to charge more upfront, obviously not.
  - cromulen 3y ago
    I think you misunderstood what the "single market" in that article means. The EU doesn't want there to be a single marketplace (App store). The single market means unifying the different national European markets. The EU cares about maintaining that market, keeping it healthy and competitive and using it as a glue to keep the European nations together and peaceful. > convention that governs technology along a framework akin to a technology user’s bill of rights. No stealing information, no antipatterns, cancel subscriptions with a single click, etc… What you're suggesting is exactly what the EU is doing through GDPR and now the DMA. The balancing act is them recognizing that these big powerful tech companies derive their value partly from their scale, network effect, etc. and trying not to, for example, try and break them up, but instead lay out a set of principles that a sufficiently big tech company has to comply with. These rules are designed to promote consumer interests and limit what is perceived as abuse of market power by forcing the companies to be more open to competitors.
- jprete 3y ago
  This article would make an excellent main post.
  - kalleboo 3y ago
    It was, a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39602417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39602417
hobs 3y ago
Nah, there's no reason to accept terrible behavior from people just because they also do some good, the more we push back and frankly punish large companies in real terms the more likely we are to get a peaceable arrangement. Google and Apple are not thinking "ah let's figure out how to work with these people to make a sustainable system" they are thinking what the most extractive operation they can get away with is, they do not deserve our regard because we also got blinky toys.
sph 3y ago
Companies are not people. We do not need to "remember their contributions and innovations." Their valuation today is because of those contributions, so they got their rewards, profit and then some. Commission a statue for them if you want. What is this parasocial relationship some people have with fiscal entities?
- riddlemethat 3y ago
  They own stock in them and don't want to see that value erased.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - izacus 3y ago
    That sad thing is... I don't think most people defending Apple in these topics actually own a significant amount of their stock directly. And they're actually undermining the strength of their own portfolios by undermining the strenght and resilience of USA economy due to erosion of free market competition and market stagnation via monopolies.
    - toyg 3y ago
      There is another type of stock: immaterial social capital. As long as Apple products are status-symbols, owners gain social relevance from their ostentatious use. This is why brands promote themselves way beyond what is necessary to just sell widgets: to build identities that people will invest in, binding themselves into enough social stock that they will feel compelled to campaign for a brand just to protect that investment. It's all incredibly sad.
      - whstl 3y ago
        Nah, Apple was WAY more of a status-symbol when it wasn't the current penny-pinching entity addicted to "services" and IAP. There's nothing "high status" in having advertisements in the Settings app.
rglullis 3y ago
What I want is for us to reward companies for what they produced, not by what they managed to squeeze out of customers after getting big. Apple was revitalized by the iPod and later the iPhone? Great, let them sell as many iPods and iPhones as they possibly can. But when they sell it, do not let them keep control of everything. If they are saying the only they can make money is by keeping the iPhone closed and being the gatekeeper of the app store, it means that they are not really making money on the device, so we shouldn't be rewarding them. Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market. Does Facebook want to innovate on the communication space by developing an application on XMPP? When was it even working with Google Talk? Amazing, let's reward them for that instead of letting close things down and please let's not them have WhatsApp to feed their endless appetite for user data.
- Kalium 3y ago
  > Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market. This one sticks out among your examples - that dominant position and the profits from it is the reward. How else would you have a reward work? This isn't an idle question. Right now companies are doing things that generate their own financial rewards. What other way would you have it work, beyond just some notion of differently?
  - foobarian 3y ago
    Not being nationalized could be a mighty reward.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      "The beatings will continue until morale improves" is not meant to be a serious guideline.
    - Kalium 3y ago
      My possessions were not nationalized at least a dozen times yesterday. It hasn't changed my behavior much, nor that of any company worth mentioning. Perhaps your life has been different from mine. The absence of a major punishment is not a strong reward. It provides no incentives except to avoid the specific things that produce that punishment.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
Google and apple have helped ruin society by developing the smartphone. They might have occasionally done something useful but I am convinced they are a net detriment. All their products are about surveillance and control. The positive might be them making some tools they use to do that available for others to use.
- brookst 3y ago
  And after them, let’s get the television. And I read a pretty convincing opinion piece about how the novel is destroying today’s youth (dated 1910 or so).
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
    Nice "gotcha" except TVs or novels are not being pushed by government and corporations as being essential to life in society.
runeofdoom 3y ago
>it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies. Perhaps I'm parsing this wrong, but it sounds a lot like "past successes are a license for future abuses." Which is not something I think we should, or can, allow.
- brookst 3y ago
  I think you parsed that wrong. I took it as “they have developed products that deliver value to some people every day, so summary execution would not be an unmitigated good”
moritonal 3y ago
I think it's a mistake to think that someone we use every day is by default beneficial to society? There are countless examples of the public discovering a thing, and the government then having to spend countless decades getting them to stop doing it in the interest of public health (both rightly and wrongly in different scenarios). Sure Instagram is great for discovery of events, but we came from a world where local bars would list those events on their own sites for free. Now the data is locked behind Insta, or FB which I consider a real step backwards for true discovery.

rapnie 3y ago

It is a bit tangential, but this article [0] by Baldur Bjarnason sheds a light on the EU's perspective in crafting regulations such as the DMA, and how that seems to be largely misunderstood by the big US tech companies. [0] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-eu-and-tech/ https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
>Any time you see two entities of similar size fight, bet on the one that thinks it’s fighting for its life. yeah sure, but also bet on the one that can pass legislation regarding the other one.
asimpletune 3y ago
This was a great read. One problem that I have, at least, is that I think the eu is not understanding the tech on this one and actually violating their own, all important, single market principle. With the apple all store, there actually was just one market and a set of standards and regulations that governed it. Now, there will be x many standards. The experience on the foo app will depend on what App Store it was purchased in. If the eu had taken a more ambitious route then I could see this actually working for apple, who operates, imo opinion, under the principle of balancing what is best for the customer against what the developer can tolerate. This has created the apple ecosystem as the only one that is profitable, precisely for the same reason the author argues the eu seeks to regulate businesses. So by more ambitious I meant there needs to be a convention that governs technology along a framework akin to a technology user’s bill of rights. No stealing information, no antipatterns, cancel subscriptions with a single click, etc…
- toyg 3y ago
  > actually violating their own, all important, single market principle Single-market perspectives only apply to EU member-states. There is no expectation of "singleness" outside the EU borders, any extra-EU standardization is just an occasional side-effect. This is the same as talking about "free trade" inside and outside the US: outside US borders there is no obligation for the US government to obey "free trade" principles, which is why they will happily apply import tariffs that would be illegal to have between US states. > apple, who operates, imo opinion, under the principle of balancing what is best for the customer against what the developer can tolerate Big lolz. Apple operates under the principle of balancing what is best for Apple against what the market will tolerate. The rest is just advertising.
  - brookst 3y ago
    Wouldn’t it be best for Apple to have complete access to users’ messages and location data to optimize ads and “personalization” upsells?
    - toyg 3y ago
      If that is a differentiator in the market that allows them to charge more upfront, obviously not.
- cromulen 3y ago
  I think you misunderstood what the "single market" in that article means. The EU doesn't want there to be a single marketplace (App store). The single market means unifying the different national European markets. The EU cares about maintaining that market, keeping it healthy and competitive and using it as a glue to keep the European nations together and peaceful. > convention that governs technology along a framework akin to a technology user’s bill of rights. No stealing information, no antipatterns, cancel subscriptions with a single click, etc… What you're suggesting is exactly what the EU is doing through GDPR and now the DMA. The balancing act is them recognizing that these big powerful tech companies derive their value partly from their scale, network effect, etc. and trying not to, for example, try and break them up, but instead lay out a set of principles that a sufficiently big tech company has to comply with. These rules are designed to promote consumer interests and limit what is perceived as abuse of market power by forcing the companies to be more open to competitors.
jprete 3y ago
This article would make an excellent main post.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  It was, a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39602417 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39602417

hobs 3y ago

Nah, there's no reason to accept terrible behavior from people just because they also do some good, the more we push back and frankly punish large companies in real terms the more likely we are to get a peaceable arrangement. Google and Apple are not thinking "ah let's figure out how to work with these people to make a sustainable system" they are thinking what the most extractive operation they can get away with is, they do not deserve our regard because we also got blinky toys.

sph 3y ago

Companies are not people. We do not need to "remember their contributions and innovations." Their valuation today is because of those contributions, so they got their rewards, profit and then some. Commission a statue for them if you want. What is this parasocial relationship some people have with fiscal entities?

riddlemethat 3y ago
They own stock in them and don't want to see that value erased.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- izacus 3y ago
  That sad thing is... I don't think most people defending Apple in these topics actually own a significant amount of their stock directly. And they're actually undermining the strength of their own portfolios by undermining the strenght and resilience of USA economy due to erosion of free market competition and market stagnation via monopolies.
  - toyg 3y ago
    There is another type of stock: immaterial social capital. As long as Apple products are status-symbols, owners gain social relevance from their ostentatious use. This is why brands promote themselves way beyond what is necessary to just sell widgets: to build identities that people will invest in, binding themselves into enough social stock that they will feel compelled to campaign for a brand just to protect that investment. It's all incredibly sad.
    - whstl 3y ago
      Nah, Apple was WAY more of a status-symbol when it wasn't the current penny-pinching entity addicted to "services" and IAP. There's nothing "high status" in having advertisements in the Settings app.

rglullis 3y ago

What I want is for us to reward companies for what they produced, not by what they managed to squeeze out of customers after getting big. Apple was revitalized by the iPod and later the iPhone? Great, let them sell as many iPods and iPhones as they possibly can. But when they sell it, do not let them keep control of everything. If they are saying the only they can make money is by keeping the iPhone closed and being the gatekeeper of the app store, it means that they are not really making money on the device, so we shouldn't be rewarding them. Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market. Does Facebook want to innovate on the communication space by developing an application on XMPP? When was it even working with Google Talk? Amazing, let's reward them for that instead of letting close things down and please let's not them have WhatsApp to feed their endless appetite for user data.

Kalium 3y ago
> Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market. This one sticks out among your examples - that dominant position and the profits from it is the reward. How else would you have a reward work? This isn't an idle question. Right now companies are doing things that generate their own financial rewards. What other way would you have it work, beyond just some notion of differently?
- foobarian 3y ago
  Not being nationalized could be a mighty reward.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    "The beatings will continue until morale improves" is not meant to be a serious guideline.
  - Kalium 3y ago
    My possessions were not nationalized at least a dozen times yesterday. It hasn't changed my behavior much, nor that of any company worth mentioning. Perhaps your life has been different from mine. The absence of a major punishment is not a strong reward. It provides no incentives except to avoid the specific things that produce that punishment.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago

Google and apple have helped ruin society by developing the smartphone. They might have occasionally done something useful but I am convinced they are a net detriment. All their products are about surveillance and control. The positive might be them making some tools they use to do that available for others to use.

brookst 3y ago
And after them, let’s get the television. And I read a pretty convincing opinion piece about how the novel is destroying today’s youth (dated 1910 or so).
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
  Nice "gotcha" except TVs or novels are not being pushed by government and corporations as being essential to life in society.

runeofdoom 3y ago

>it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies. Perhaps I'm parsing this wrong, but it sounds a lot like "past successes are a license for future abuses." Which is not something I think we should, or can, allow.

brookst 3y ago
I think you parsed that wrong. I took it as “they have developed products that deliver value to some people every day, so summary execution would not be an unmitigated good”

moritonal 3y ago

I think it's a mistake to think that someone we use every day is by default beneficial to society? There are countless examples of the public discovering a thing, and the government then having to spend countless decades getting them to stop doing it in the interest of public health (both rightly and wrongly in different scenarios). Sure Instagram is great for discovery of events, but we came from a world where local bars would list those events on their own sites for free. Now the data is locked behind Insta, or FB which I consider a real step backwards for true discovery.