6 ms·

This is what the term "nanny state" was invented for, right? Why is your data usage the govt's, Niantic's, or a telco's responsibility?

by nilved 10y ago

troebr 10y ago
This is the state making sure that uninformed customers are not taken by surprise by a gigantic data bill. Sounds like the state trying to protect its citizens. They're not bullying Niantic, just raising a concern. If anything this could prevent backlash from users against Niantic. To me it looks like these people are doing their job.
- nilved 10y ago
  The onus is on the uninformed customers to inform themselves.
  - wonnage 10y ago
    What if you're the lowest common denominator?
  - supercheetah 10y ago
    Niantic is free to ignore this letter. Stifling would be if laws were passed on how Pokemon Go could be played. This isn't that. That said, these questions should be posed to the carriers rather than Niantic.
  - it_learnses 10y ago
    yes, let's get rid of the FDA too. The Onus is on customers to inform themselves of the quality and origin of their food. Buyer Beware baby!
    - nilved 10y ago
      I am glad we're in agreement.
      - loup-vaillant 10y ago
        You know, if we're going to go full Libertarian on this issue, a number of people is going to die. They will buy poison and ingest it because they didn't properly inform themselves. Others are going to trust the ads, then die all the same. When people are sick of dying, some form of regulation, or at least a trusted communication channel, will likely take root. In the mean time, lots of people are going to die. This is a heavy price. So I wonder: is this issue worth all those deaths?
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        You know perfectly well that the FDA kills a lot of people already. You need to argue that having it is better than not having it, not that there are undesirable consequences to not having it.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        It's not either/or, if you're honest about the issue you can also argue scaling down (or up) some regulations. That said, it's ridiculous to assume that if you do away with enforcing food safety and quality standards things will be peachy. That's not how free market works. You or your kids will likely die of poison. Because quite a lot of entrepreneurs are assholes and the only thing that stands between you and painful death are those regulations. (Don't believe me? Do some shopping on eBay. Or better, go work for a week in a grocery store and see the shit they pull off while still staying within regulations. I'm a chatty person so I quickly make friends with people at stores, and a side benefit of that is that I get told when not to buy meat from them...)
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        > the only thing that stands between you and painful death are those regulations Obviously, that is not actually true. Those regulations are a recent phenomenon. But before we had them, very few people suffered painful death from their lack.
loup-vaillant 10y ago
If your data usage comes from inefficiencies of Pokémon Go, then it is Niantic's responsibility. (At least up to however much bandwidth they could have saved.)
- nilved 10y ago
  There is no expectation that every app you use is perfectly optimized, and it's likely that none of them are.
  - CydeWeys 10y ago
    It also runs against Silicon Valley culture, which is to get to MVP as quickly as possible and release early. There are trade-offs to be made between complete optimization and time-to-market. Leaning entirely in favor of the former is almost never the correct decision, and certainly not in startup land (and Niantic is a startup!).
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
    No, but we do expect that it's reasonably optimised. For instance, no one expect a reasonable app to download the same visual assets over and over again (and it looks like Pokemon Go does just that, though I'm not entirely sure I believe it). Besides, even a little optimization can have a very large impact: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12135849&goto=threads%3Fid%3Dloup-vaillant%2312135849 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12135849&goto=threads%...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]

This is what the term "nanny state" was invented for, right? Why is your data usage the govt's, Niantic's, or a telco's responsibility?

by nilved 10y ago

This is what the term "nanny state" was invented for, right? Why is your data usage the govt's, Niantic's, or a telco's responsibility?

troebr 10y ago

This is the state making sure that uninformed customers are not taken by surprise by a gigantic data bill. Sounds like the state trying to protect its citizens. They're not bullying Niantic, just raising a concern. If anything this could prevent backlash from users against Niantic. To me it looks like these people are doing their job.

nilved 10y ago
The onus is on the uninformed customers to inform themselves.
- wonnage 10y ago
  What if you're the lowest common denominator?
- supercheetah 10y ago
  Niantic is free to ignore this letter. Stifling would be if laws were passed on how Pokemon Go could be played. This isn't that. That said, these questions should be posed to the carriers rather than Niantic.
- it_learnses 10y ago
  yes, let's get rid of the FDA too. The Onus is on customers to inform themselves of the quality and origin of their food. Buyer Beware baby!
  - nilved 10y ago
    I am glad we're in agreement.
    - loup-vaillant 10y ago
      You know, if we're going to go full Libertarian on this issue, a number of people is going to die. They will buy poison and ingest it because they didn't properly inform themselves. Others are going to trust the ads, then die all the same. When people are sick of dying, some form of regulation, or at least a trusted communication channel, will likely take root. In the mean time, lots of people are going to die. This is a heavy price. So I wonder: is this issue worth all those deaths?
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        You know perfectly well that the FDA kills a lot of people already. You need to argue that having it is better than not having it, not that there are undesirable consequences to not having it.
        TeMPOraL 10y ago
        It's not either/or, if you're honest about the issue you can also argue scaling down (or up) some regulations. That said, it's ridiculous to assume that if you do away with enforcing food safety and quality standards things will be peachy. That's not how free market works. You or your kids will likely die of poison. Because quite a lot of entrepreneurs are assholes and the only thing that stands between you and painful death are those regulations. (Don't believe me? Do some shopping on eBay. Or better, go work for a week in a grocery store and see the shit they pull off while still staying within regulations. I'm a chatty person so I quickly make friends with people at stores, and a side benefit of that is that I get told when not to buy meat from them...)
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        > the only thing that stands between you and painful death are those regulations Obviously, that is not actually true. Those regulations are a recent phenomenon. But before we had them, very few people suffered painful death from their lack.

loup-vaillant 10y ago

If your data usage comes from inefficiencies of Pokémon Go, then it is Niantic's responsibility. (At least up to however much bandwidth they could have saved.)

nilved 10y ago
There is no expectation that every app you use is perfectly optimized, and it's likely that none of them are.
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  It also runs against Silicon Valley culture, which is to get to MVP as quickly as possible and release early. There are trade-offs to be made between complete optimization and time-to-market. Leaning entirely in favor of the former is almost never the correct decision, and certainly not in startup land (and Niantic is a startup!).
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
  No, but we do expect that it's reasonably optimised. For instance, no one expect a reasonable app to download the same visual assets over and over again (and it looks like Pokemon Go does just that, though I'm not entirely sure I believe it). Besides, even a little optimization can have a very large impact: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12135849&goto=threads%3Fid%3Dloup-vaillant%2312135849 https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=12135849&goto=threads%...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]