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> I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. You don't matter, consumers matter. > Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. And you didn't hav

> I, the engineer, do not want them to do this. You don't matter, consumers matter. > Before Google and Apple, I didn't have this problem. And you didn't have distribution either. > But it wasn't always this way! Indeed, there wasn't even distribution. Do you actually remember what was shipping mobile software back in 2005? > I want them to pay back the negative externalities they've leveraged onto us. Again, you as an engineer don't matter, only as a consumer. And consumers have never had so many options and at such low prices.

hrayr 8y ago
I don't entirely disagree with you, but what do we call the web if not distribution?
- ucaetano 8y ago
  The web didn't disappear, quite the opposite. Now you have the web AND the in-device app stores. Even more choice.
  - echelon 8y ago
    But they're not equal citizens on mobile devices. Web often feels sluggish on mobile, and it doesn't have the same access to device and hardware APIs, nor does it allow low-level control of concurrency and allocation. (I don't want to get off topic about HTML/JS. It does a lot of jobs well.) There could have been an open, cross-platform native app stack if Apple and Google and a consortium of other companies had joined forces and made it so. There's no technical reason preventing this. The economic incentives got us to where we are. Devices should be easy to target. There should be the option to use multiple app stores right off the bat, and you shouldn't have to bundle to get access to Gmail. Or even better - point your browser at gmail.com and get the native app installed on your mobile device. Distributed updates from gmail.com sans app store. The OS would still control permissions and guard against malicious apps. The world wide web era was truly unique and special, and it's a shame the same principles didn't carry into the mobile world.
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      You can do all of that, just download the apk. What you seem to want is that app stores should be forced to accept any apps? The rest is just saudosistic nostalgia. There wasn't mass access to the internet, you're just missing the times when a small elite had access to the internet. Consumers are far better now than they were.
      - wolco 8y ago
        There was open access to the internet when aol started giving away cd-roms. Rich and poor, educated and less educated roamed different sites often clashing. The interest wasn't massive because things were not super easy. Phones bridged the gap. Fast forward to today you have less choice but bigger buy buttons.
        ucaetano 8y ago
        > rich and poor You seem to have a mental image of the internet that doesn't correspond to reality. Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan. Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit.
        tkxxx7 8y ago
        > Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan. Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit. I was very, very poor. So were most of the kids I grew up with. Most of us couldn't afford new computers; that's true. So we bought old ones. My father - tears in his eyes - lugged in something ancient that he'd picked up for $50, having no idea how to use it but hoping that putting it in front me would do me some good. AOL had been mailing everyone in town (Detroit). Some kids got PCs from the nearby churches, some got them from the school (others still only ever used them in school). We collected and hoarded the access disks, and would go ringing each others' phones or knocking down doors to share websites we'd found. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized the AOL search results page was not the entire internet, and that I could click on any text with a blue outline. > doesn't correspond to reality I know there are people who managed (or didn't..) to grow up poorer than I did. But even poverty is a spectrum.
- lvturner 8y ago
  Someone still has to at least pay for the bandwidth though... I agree it's not an Apples to Apples comparison, but it always strikes me that people forget they used to have to pay for distribution too. I remember one piece of software I was working on would cost the company around $5K per release in download costs alone.
fouc 8y ago
Why can't mobile follow the same model as desktop?
- ucaetano 8y ago
  It does, you can download an apk and install it on Android.
  - Stuckinsofa 8y ago
    Don't you have to enable some kind of global special access right? So it's not the same thing.
    - ndnxhs 8y ago
      Yes, and its super hard now. When I installed the new android version the only way I could get fdroid installed was flashing it as a system app in the recovery.
    - Teknoman117 8y ago
      You have to do that on Windows and macOS now as well...
      - Stuckinsofa 8y ago
        I haven't had to enable some global setting to allow unknown programs on Windows 10. What are you referring to?
        Teknoman117 8y ago
        Last time I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Home I had to go into Apps & features and disable "Allow apps from the Store only" in order to install Chrome. Didn't seem to have to do that on Windows 10 Pro.
- em500 8y ago
  The desktop distribution model was awful. I wasted many many hours in the past cleaning crapware from family PCs.
smadurange 8y ago
Your premise is sound. But it's in your conclusion that you miss the point. The point is its not 2005 anymore. Today, if Google didn't do it, someone else will and can. Except that a certain brand of monopolies set things up in a way that a rather worrying number of people think that without these monopolies there's no other choice. You think that it's Google that's enabled and empowered all of us. That, my friend, is where you are wrong.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  Sure, someone else might have done it, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it was Google or Apple, or someone else. What matters is only the impact to the consumer, and the consumer is far, far better off than in 2005.

hrayr 8y ago

I don't entirely disagree with you, but what do we call the web if not distribution?

ucaetano 8y ago
The web didn't disappear, quite the opposite. Now you have the web AND the in-device app stores. Even more choice.
- echelon 8y ago
  But they're not equal citizens on mobile devices. Web often feels sluggish on mobile, and it doesn't have the same access to device and hardware APIs, nor does it allow low-level control of concurrency and allocation. (I don't want to get off topic about HTML/JS. It does a lot of jobs well.) There could have been an open, cross-platform native app stack if Apple and Google and a consortium of other companies had joined forces and made it so. There's no technical reason preventing this. The economic incentives got us to where we are. Devices should be easy to target. There should be the option to use multiple app stores right off the bat, and you shouldn't have to bundle to get access to Gmail. Or even better - point your browser at gmail.com and get the native app installed on your mobile device. Distributed updates from gmail.com sans app store. The OS would still control permissions and guard against malicious apps. The world wide web era was truly unique and special, and it's a shame the same principles didn't carry into the mobile world.
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    You can do all of that, just download the apk. What you seem to want is that app stores should be forced to accept any apps? The rest is just saudosistic nostalgia. There wasn't mass access to the internet, you're just missing the times when a small elite had access to the internet. Consumers are far better now than they were.
    - wolco 8y ago
      There was open access to the internet when aol started giving away cd-roms. Rich and poor, educated and less educated roamed different sites often clashing. The interest wasn't massive because things were not super easy. Phones bridged the gap. Fast forward to today you have less choice but bigger buy buttons.
      - ucaetano 8y ago
        > rich and poor You seem to have a mental image of the internet that doesn't correspond to reality. Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan. Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit.
        tkxxx7 8y ago
        > Poor didn't have access, they couldn't afford a computer, much less an internet plan. Step out of the Hacker News bubble for a bit. I was very, very poor. So were most of the kids I grew up with. Most of us couldn't afford new computers; that's true. So we bought old ones. My father - tears in his eyes - lugged in something ancient that he'd picked up for $50, having no idea how to use it but hoping that putting it in front me would do me some good. AOL had been mailing everyone in town (Detroit). Some kids got PCs from the nearby churches, some got them from the school (others still only ever used them in school). We collected and hoarded the access disks, and would go ringing each others' phones or knocking down doors to share websites we'd found. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized the AOL search results page was not the entire internet, and that I could click on any text with a blue outline. > doesn't correspond to reality I know there are people who managed (or didn't..) to grow up poorer than I did. But even poverty is a spectrum.
lvturner 8y ago
Someone still has to at least pay for the bandwidth though... I agree it's not an Apples to Apples comparison, but it always strikes me that people forget they used to have to pay for distribution too. I remember one piece of software I was working on would cost the company around $5K per release in download costs alone.

fouc 8y ago

Why can't mobile follow the same model as desktop?

ucaetano 8y ago
It does, you can download an apk and install it on Android.
- Stuckinsofa 8y ago
  Don't you have to enable some kind of global special access right? So it's not the same thing.
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    Yes, and its super hard now. When I installed the new android version the only way I could get fdroid installed was flashing it as a system app in the recovery.
  - Teknoman117 8y ago
    You have to do that on Windows and macOS now as well...
    - Stuckinsofa 8y ago
      I haven't had to enable some global setting to allow unknown programs on Windows 10. What are you referring to?
      - Teknoman117 8y ago
        Last time I did a fresh install of Windows 10 Home I had to go into Apps & features and disable "Allow apps from the Store only" in order to install Chrome. Didn't seem to have to do that on Windows 10 Pro.
em500 8y ago
The desktop distribution model was awful. I wasted many many hours in the past cleaning crapware from family PCs.

smadurange 8y ago

Your premise is sound. But it's in your conclusion that you miss the point. The point is its not 2005 anymore. Today, if Google didn't do it, someone else will and can. Except that a certain brand of monopolies set things up in a way that a rather worrying number of people think that without these monopolies there's no other choice. You think that it's Google that's enabled and empowered all of us. That, my friend, is where you are wrong.

ucaetano 8y ago
Sure, someone else might have done it, but that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if it was Google or Apple, or someone else. What matters is only the impact to the consumer, and the consumer is far, far better off than in 2005.