6 ms·

If you don’t like how Apple does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like how Google does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like

If you don’t like how Apple does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like how Google does business, stop using their products. If you don’t like how either one does business, stop using technology all together. I am being facetious, but mainly to illustrate the point that we now have a series of entrenched monopolies in the tech world so “stop using X” isn’t a realistic solution.

enriquto 6y ago
On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Moreover, for people who are not citizens of the USA (the large majority of the people!), there's no other clear course of action.
- FakeRemore 6y ago
  > On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Are you suggesting people stop using smartphones altogether?
  - pathseeker 6y ago
    Depends on if you consider running a phone with Google services removed "supporting Google".
  - Brakenshire 6y ago
    There are services that operate on Android with open source implementations of the Google proprietary services which have been designed for lock-in. https://e.foundation https://e.foundation packages up the work from Lineage and MicroG and sells phones with the software preinstalled.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > Are you suggesting people stop using smartphones altogether? I do not have a smartphone and my life is alright, but I was not suggesting that. You can certainly have a smartphone that is not controlled by neither Google nor Apple. For example, by installing an OS like LineageOS, or even some "freer" stuff that is out there.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      In a tech crowd like HN, I don't think that's a reasonable solution for most people. App ecosystems have network effects. Do your {bank, 2FA vendor, paycheck vendor, retirement vendor, etc} all support apps for LineageOS? Additionally, the number of tech jobs which support those smartphones, their apps, testing websites on smartphone browsers, and the related marketing all require many of us to participate in the core smartphone markets, even if we choose not to use them outside of work.
      - enriquto 6y ago
        If somebody is able to take these compromises it is certainly senior software engineers. And yes, you can install any android app on lineageos, even if it does not have google services enabled. I have a lot of trouble to force my mom (nearly computer illiterate) to live without google and similar stuff. But I bully mercilessly my co-workers for that. At least they agreed to use jitsi instead of zoom, so that's something
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
In principal I agree with you. But consider the case of Gmail. You have to communicate with a lot of people that use Gmail, and Google can block that because one of their robots decides it doesn't like your host/server/domain/IP/face. You have little recourse to resolve this, probably even less so if you don't have a Google account.
- eat 6y ago
  The comment you're replying to is making the same point.
buo 6y ago
What do you mean? I don't use Apple or Google products and I use technology every day.
- Recursing 6y ago
  Doesn't this website use firebase?
  - root_axis 6y ago
    You're not a user in any meaningful way of every subcomponent of a product.
    - itsamoreh 6y ago
      Maybe, but you're still indirectly supporting them.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        How?
        thephyber 6y ago
        In any free/freemium product/service, your attention is your primary currency (your wallet and your participation in the network effect are secondary). Marketing to HN viewers happens when a funded company announces hiring.
        root_axis 6y ago
        How does that translate into support for google?
        thephyber 6y ago
        If you spend money or attention on a site that pays Google as a vendor, that is quite obviously indirect support of Google. Perhaps we are just quibbling about which definition of the word "support"? In which case I agree that there is one definition of support in which you are right and another in which your parent is right.
alkonaut 6y ago
That’s a very cumbersome a way of getting what I want. It’s much better and easier if e.g the EU simply makes Apple do the right thing by force. The market doesn’t solve this kind of problem.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  We already have anti-trust regulations that are supposed to stop these sorts of anti-competitive behaviors. A company is not allowed to use its position as a "market" to ALSO give an unfair advantage to its own products - or to shut out competitors without reasonable cause. ...but these laws aren't being enforced. It's funny to remember Microsoft being forced to de-couple Internet Explorer from Windows, and yet the idea of de-coupling the app Store from IOS or the Play store from Android does not seem to occur to regulators. I have a conspiracy theory that they like that American companies have this market strangle-hold and are unwilling to give market share to EU or Chinese competitors. Imagine all the data collect lost!
  - dgb23 6y ago
    In theory there is already an open technology which is decoupled from these platforms: the browser. Job’s vision was exactly that. Now we’re still(!) in a place where standards are being fought by the likes if Apple, because they have an incentive to weaken open standards in favor of their closed platforms. This is a grotesque strategy that needs to stop.
- scarface74 6y ago
  You know this whole capitalist system would be much easier if the government had “5 Year Plans”.
- jpttsn 6y ago
  Indeed. And if my local restaurant doesn’t have a nice table for me, it’s much easier if Tony Soprano can have a little talk with the owner.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
simion314 6y ago
We also need to keep in mind that you can't get your toys and leave, your applications and media is locked into the store, you will have to start over, buy everything again, and before someone mentions "What about Xbox or Stream" those are bad too.
- thephyber 6y ago
  Apple iTunes has actually tried to mitigate this by supporting Movies Anywhere[1] for some video content and iTunes Plus[2] has no DRM, so they aren't as bad as some other walled gardens. The app stores/systems on all of the walled gardens are problematic, but the way I see it it's largely because they don't want to create a web of trust including all of the other app stores (the weakest one's security would cause a loss of profit for all). > What about X or Y This behavior is largely a feature of the market and a failure of governments to choose to do anything about it. We are ~12 years into the iOS app ecosystem, and much further (~30 years) when it comes to packaged disk software/games which were sold separately for Apple/Windows/game consoles. I'm more worried about the trajectory -- governments don't seem to identify this as a problem (except for a few select legislators) and other industries seem to be moving in this direction (John Deere DRM, Tesla apps, AWS Marketplace, etc). [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202915 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202915 [2] https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/itunes-plus-itns1ec4ec20/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/itunes-plus-itns1ec4e...
froasty 6y ago
Every time someone says "I have no choice but to go against the dictates of my conscience" it translates to "I have a choice to have my own will free of coercion, but I don't want to pay the entry fee of having integrity." No one is forcing anyone to use Apple or Google products. Anyone that wants the nominal "benefits" that they provide, continues to make the moment-by-moment choice of using them. You can throw your iPhone or Android phone away (or sell it and give the proceeds to the poor, e.g. child cobalt miners or Foxconn workers). You can get a dumb phone. You can live (shockingly!) without having a cellphone at all. Your job requires you to have a MacBook? Get a different job. The lifestyle you choose may require you to have these things, but that's because you choose the lifestyle over personal integrity. No one can actually follow their own morality and someone else's. You either prove a hypocrite to yourself or a hypocrite to others. You can't serve both justice and the marketplace. You could take no thought for your career, nor how you would make your living, nor where you would live; nor even the clothes you would wear in the morning. Is living not more than jobs, money, and clothing?
Proven 6y ago
There's a monopoly and oligopoly. How can there be a series of monopolies? They don't provide essential services, so it is very much possible to not do busines with any of them. I don't like the way they do business, but let's be honest about the situation.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> I am being facetious, but mainly to illustrate the point that we now have a series of entrenched monopolies in the tech world so “stop using X” isn’t a realistic solution. Even if you could simply stop using X, "voting with your wallet" is often a fallacy, especially when voting with your voice and actual vote have consistently enacted meaningful change throughout history.

enriquto 6y ago

On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Moreover, for people who are not citizens of the USA (the large majority of the people!), there's no other clear course of action.

FakeRemore 6y ago
> On the other hand, for us "tech people" it is actually easier to stop using Google and Apple and serve as example for others. Pushing for anti-monopoly legislation needs not be the only thing that we do to solve that problem. Are you suggesting people stop using smartphones altogether?
- pathseeker 6y ago
  Depends on if you consider running a phone with Google services removed "supporting Google".
- Brakenshire 6y ago
  There are services that operate on Android with open source implementations of the Google proprietary services which have been designed for lock-in. https://e.foundation https://e.foundation packages up the work from Lineage and MicroG and sells phones with the software preinstalled.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > Are you suggesting people stop using smartphones altogether? I do not have a smartphone and my life is alright, but I was not suggesting that. You can certainly have a smartphone that is not controlled by neither Google nor Apple. For example, by installing an OS like LineageOS, or even some "freer" stuff that is out there.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    In a tech crowd like HN, I don't think that's a reasonable solution for most people. App ecosystems have network effects. Do your {bank, 2FA vendor, paycheck vendor, retirement vendor, etc} all support apps for LineageOS? Additionally, the number of tech jobs which support those smartphones, their apps, testing websites on smartphone browsers, and the related marketing all require many of us to participate in the core smartphone markets, even if we choose not to use them outside of work.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      If somebody is able to take these compromises it is certainly senior software engineers. And yes, you can install any android app on lineageos, even if it does not have google services enabled. I have a lot of trouble to force my mom (nearly computer illiterate) to live without google and similar stuff. But I bully mercilessly my co-workers for that. At least they agreed to use jitsi instead of zoom, so that's something

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

In principal I agree with you. But consider the case of Gmail. You have to communicate with a lot of people that use Gmail, and Google can block that because one of their robots decides it doesn't like your host/server/domain/IP/face. You have little recourse to resolve this, probably even less so if you don't have a Google account.

eat 6y ago
The comment you're replying to is making the same point.

buo 6y ago

What do you mean? I don't use Apple or Google products and I use technology every day.

Recursing 6y ago
Doesn't this website use firebase?
- root_axis 6y ago
  You're not a user in any meaningful way of every subcomponent of a product.
  - itsamoreh 6y ago
    Maybe, but you're still indirectly supporting them.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      How?
      - thephyber 6y ago
        In any free/freemium product/service, your attention is your primary currency (your wallet and your participation in the network effect are secondary). Marketing to HN viewers happens when a funded company announces hiring.
        root_axis 6y ago
        How does that translate into support for google?
        thephyber 6y ago
        If you spend money or attention on a site that pays Google as a vendor, that is quite obviously indirect support of Google. Perhaps we are just quibbling about which definition of the word "support"? In which case I agree that there is one definition of support in which you are right and another in which your parent is right.

alkonaut 6y ago

That’s a very cumbersome a way of getting what I want. It’s much better and easier if e.g the EU simply makes Apple do the right thing by force. The market doesn’t solve this kind of problem.

koheripbal 6y ago
We already have anti-trust regulations that are supposed to stop these sorts of anti-competitive behaviors. A company is not allowed to use its position as a "market" to ALSO give an unfair advantage to its own products - or to shut out competitors without reasonable cause. ...but these laws aren't being enforced. It's funny to remember Microsoft being forced to de-couple Internet Explorer from Windows, and yet the idea of de-coupling the app Store from IOS or the Play store from Android does not seem to occur to regulators. I have a conspiracy theory that they like that American companies have this market strangle-hold and are unwilling to give market share to EU or Chinese competitors. Imagine all the data collect lost!
- dgb23 6y ago
  In theory there is already an open technology which is decoupled from these platforms: the browser. Job’s vision was exactly that. Now we’re still(!) in a place where standards are being fought by the likes if Apple, because they have an incentive to weaken open standards in favor of their closed platforms. This is a grotesque strategy that needs to stop.
scarface74 6y ago
You know this whole capitalist system would be much easier if the government had “5 Year Plans”.
jpttsn 6y ago
Indeed. And if my local restaurant doesn’t have a nice table for me, it’s much easier if Tony Soprano can have a little talk with the owner.
- alkonaut 6y ago

simion314 6y ago

We also need to keep in mind that you can't get your toys and leave, your applications and media is locked into the store, you will have to start over, buy everything again, and before someone mentions "What about Xbox or Stream" those are bad too.

thephyber 6y ago
Apple iTunes has actually tried to mitigate this by supporting Movies Anywhere[1] for some video content and iTunes Plus[2] has no DRM, so they aren't as bad as some other walled gardens. The app stores/systems on all of the walled gardens are problematic, but the way I see it it's largely because they don't want to create a web of trust including all of the other app stores (the weakest one's security would cause a loss of profit for all). > What about X or Y This behavior is largely a feature of the market and a failure of governments to choose to do anything about it. We are ~12 years into the iOS app ecosystem, and much further (~30 years) when it comes to packaged disk software/games which were sold separately for Apple/Windows/game consoles. I'm more worried about the trajectory -- governments don't seem to identify this as a problem (except for a few select legislators) and other industries seem to be moving in this direction (John Deere DRM, Tesla apps, AWS Marketplace, etc). [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202915 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202915 [2] https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/itunes-plus-itns1ec4ec20/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/itunes/itunes-plus-itns1ec4e...

froasty 6y ago

Every time someone says "I have no choice but to go against the dictates of my conscience" it translates to "I have a choice to have my own will free of coercion, but I don't want to pay the entry fee of having integrity." No one is forcing anyone to use Apple or Google products. Anyone that wants the nominal "benefits" that they provide, continues to make the moment-by-moment choice of using them. You can throw your iPhone or Android phone away (or sell it and give the proceeds to the poor, e.g. child cobalt miners or Foxconn workers). You can get a dumb phone. You can live (shockingly!) without having a cellphone at all. Your job requires you to have a MacBook? Get a different job. The lifestyle you choose may require you to have these things, but that's because you choose the lifestyle over personal integrity. No one can actually follow their own morality and someone else's. You either prove a hypocrite to yourself or a hypocrite to others. You can't serve both justice and the marketplace. You could take no thought for your career, nor how you would make your living, nor where you would live; nor even the clothes you would wear in the morning. Is living not more than jobs, money, and clothing?

Proven 6y ago

There's a monopoly and oligopoly. How can there be a series of monopolies? They don't provide essential services, so it is very much possible to not do busines with any of them. I don't like the way they do business, but let's be honest about the situation.

heavyset_go 6y ago

> I am being facetious, but mainly to illustrate the point that we now have a series of entrenched monopolies in the tech world so “stop using X” isn’t a realistic solution. Even if you could simply stop using X, "voting with your wallet" is often a fallacy, especially when voting with your voice and actual vote have consistently enacted meaningful change throughout history.