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All the arguments about what company is most evil entirely miss the point. You don't make a decision on a specific issue based on what company you like more, y

by gpm 6y ago

All the arguments about what company is most evil entirely miss the point. You don't make a decision on a specific issue based on what company you like more, you base it on who is right on the specific issue. From an ethical perspective that's what having a codified rule of laws is all about. Everyone get's the same rules no matter how much you like them. You don't arbitrarily punish people for doing things you don't like by denying them unrelated things that they are entitled to unless you go in front of a judge and get a judge to order that as a punishment for doing the thing you don't like. From a entirely practical and short term perspective these decisions do not just impact the companies you don't like, they also impact everyone else because our legal system puts a very heavy weight on precedent. I'm strongly reminded of the quote "Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like." (though obviously in this case it is applied to justice in general instead of speech in particular).

jlelse 6y ago
> All the arguments about what company is most evil entirely miss the point. This!
geodel 6y ago
> I'm strongly reminded of the quote "Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like... Modern addendum is "You can have Freedom Of Speech but no guarantee for Freedom After speech." Edit: Just to clarify, It is not my opinion. It is Social media warriors warning people "Free speech is not free of consequences"
- DevKoala 6y ago
  I struggled to read your comment, but it shouldn’t be ignored. What you are saying is correct.
- mercurysmessage 6y ago
  "Free speech is not free of consequences" This is absolutely true though? I fail to see your point. You are free to say what you want, and other people are free to criticize you for it. If you don't support the right to criticize, you don't support free speech.
  - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
    Depends on the consequences. Usually this is invoked to mean "it's fine for me burn down your business or destroy your life because I don't like you because consequences <grin>" In general, the statement CANNOT be true, because the chilling effect explicitly suppresses free speech -- being a result of consequences. Ergo, consequence (of a particular type) is in fact suppression of free speech.
    - lucisferre 6y ago
      > Usually this is invoked to mean "it's fine for me burn down your business or destroy your life because I don't like you because consequences <grin>" What a ridiculous hyperbole of what it "usually" means.
  - geodel 6y ago
    It is more of "free to criticize' vs 'free to destroy livelihood' thing. Some would say both are same or second is just an implementation detail of first.
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching).
      - seneca 6y ago
        > Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching). No, the 1st Amendment is the right to not be arrested for speaking (in the United States). Free Speech is a philosophy that would absolutely cover not committing physical violence against someone for what they say. Violence in response to speech is probably a good starting point for the definition of unfree speech.
jariel 6y ago
The issue is 'anti competitiveness' not 'evil' and most arguments are pointed at that.
- gpm 6y ago
  Things have improved since I posted this. At the time I posted this the top comment and many other highly voted comments were just criticizing epic, spotify, and tinder. E.g. complaining that epic sells to kids, spotify doesn't pay artists enough, and that tinder sells sex and commits age discrimination. Regardless of whether or not they are valid complaints, they aren't at all related to anti trust (or if they are, no one was bothering to make the connection). This use to be the top comment, for reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 This was the comment that was the tipping point for me making the post, and was at the time ranked fairly highly (hence all the replies to it): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579479
  - sarakayakomzin 6y ago
    > Things have improved since I posted this. >Regardless of whether or not they are valid complaints >This use to be the top comment >This was the comment that was the tipping point for me making the post >>> Things have improved since I posted this. I mean, you look at something new and you're going to have low-quality comments based on their first thoughts on something. I don't understand the confusion.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bonaldi 6y ago
The wider context around the specific issues can still be useful in deciding what's "best" (distinct from "right"). EG: look at the antitrust case Apple lost over eBook pricing. The rules said they should lose in order to ensure a fair market for eBooks, a minute's consideration of the wider context said that if they lost Amazon would suck up the entire market. Which it did. The net result, even if narrowly within the rules, was a loss for consumers and for competition
- stefan_ 6y ago
  No, the rules say organizing a price fixing ring is illegal. The result of which was literally to simultaneously raise prices for consumers across all platforms. It's particularly ironic in this case because the whole point of the exercise for Apple was to increase prices so they could still charge their extortionate 30%. Amazon wasn't remotely that greedy.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    That’s the silliest perspective on this case you could have. Apple gave publishers the right to set their own prices, but in return required they don’t undercut those prices on other platforms. Apple had only a a small market share at the time. Publishers could have said, nah, we are happy with Amazon, and refused to agree to Apple’s terms. This is about as clear a free market as one gets, that it became an antitrust issue shows how crazytown antitrust law has become. This was attractive to Publishers because they were terrified of an Amazon monopoly. Amazon selling ebooks at cost did nothing for Publishers long term because it was killing other ebook competitors. This offered a viable competitor to be an ebook outlet. Instead the misguided Justice department and a judge made Apple back down and what do we have now? Exactly what publishers feared, an Amazon monopoly.
    - rebelos 6y ago
      "It's awful that a $2 trillion tech company's price fixing conspiracy flatlined and consumers in 2020 pay really low ebook prices. What is American justice coming to?"
temp667 6y ago
The question from a principle standpoint is - can a company create an area where trust / safety / security are prioritized. T Developers no doubt disagree with this, they have created a web that is filled with crap. Let's be 100% clear about that. Spam calls via voip, spam into email, ddos floods of every sort imaginable, impossible to unsubscribe, cramming and slamming on subscription renewals and the list goes on. They don't want root on your device to help you, but to screw you in enough cases that you shouldn't give them root. Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc. Apple wanted to create their own little world. Phones with updates that keep on getting updated, an app marketplace with much more transparent pricing (lot less fine print), and the list goes on. You need to look at what apple is doing in context. The world on the net developers and hackers here on HN have created is terrible in many ways for many many people. At some point folks are just tied of the endless scams. Now the same folks who trashed a lot of the rest of the web (do you answer your phone when an unkown number calls?) want into the walled apple garden.
- spideymans 6y ago
  >Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc. Yeah I find this general argument that developers should be "trusted" with the "freedom" of an "open" ecosystem, with all those happy buzzwords, so off-putting. I mean, sure, I might perhaps trust the small indie developer working out of his basement to not screw me over, but by and large the software that end users are interacting with are coming out of faceless billion dollar behemoths looking to squeeze every dollar out of their users (and associated data) as possible. I have zero reason to trust them, particularly given the conduct of the Internet giants (ahem... Facebook). Perhaps if these businesses had a more user-friendly business model, end users would've been comfortable using a less restrictive mobile software platforms, similar to what we used to have on desktop computers. Facebook et all have reaped what they sowed, and they get zero sympathy from me regarding their App Store situation. They're the reason that users (even on HN) generally celebrate when Apple imposes an ever growing list of privacy restrictions on their activities.
- gpm 6y ago
  To keep the continuity of discussion, I assume that this comment was posted here because my top level comment was in part a reply to your (temp667's) comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 I appreciate the attempt to connect this to the anti-trust suit, but I don't see this as a good justification for why your original critique is relevant for a few reasons: - Many of the practices in your original critique are allowed on (or not prevented by) Apple's app store. The argument you are making here only makes sense as pertaining to anti-trust to the extent that you are critiquing practices that Apple is preventing. - It doesn't particularly matter whether the people trying to overturn Apple's practice are the bad actors, or third parties are, since the lawsuit affects all parties (third party or not) equally. So while you could make a consumer benefit argument based on bad actors (indeed, Apple has tried to in the lawsuit), it makes little to no sense to focus on the parties suing (and simultaneously falls into the trap of just arguing that people you don't like don't deserve justice). On a separate note - I also find the argument for Apple's bundling of services here unconvincing. I have seen no argument for why Apple's curation service needs to be bundled with the phone - which is the prerequisite of the anti trust suit. Consider that apple could perfectly well sell the hardware and OS, and separately sell (or even offer for free) a software package that locks out third party app stores and third party payment providers. Doing so would practically destroy any argument that they are using their monopoly on IPhone hardware and IOs to acquire a monopoly on app distribution and payment services. To the extent that people find the lock in useful, I expect they would install that software package.
munk-a 6y ago
The ethics of speech protection and laws are a complicated subject - I strongly agree that being moral judgements into punishments is a dark road that has led to a lot of racism and other discrimination in the past... but justice isn't blind and unmoving, justice should evolve to reinforce changes in ethical thinking in society at large. There have been several prominent incidents recently that have shown that the portion of legal enforcement relying on societal norms in the US has been broken, I think due to our general acceptance that greed and money are good and having those things means you've succeeded in life. Legal judgments that leave a bad taste in your mouth shouldn't be ignored but examined to see if the laws that we have actually fit the society we're trying to maintain - people shouldn't be arbitrarily persecuted for actions and ex post facto protections are very well intentioned and wisely put in place to protect against some really heinous abuses - but questioning whether the law should be changed to prevent future incidents isn't bad - it's how our legal system evolves.
anm89 6y ago
Well said.
rtikulit 6y ago
I think the discussion and analysis of each company's prior behaviour is exactly on point--the question before humanity in the general case is "what are these companies really up to?" Each (including Apple) has a hidden agenda. They can be both beneficial and harmful. They are not our friends! They deserve our scrutiny, suspicion and supervision. A company is a system that was created to pursue an agenda. That agenda is nothing like the agenda of a typical human individual (except at absurd levels of abstraction) and is not necessarily net-beneficial to actual humans in the short or the long run. It's an axiom of systems analysis that behaviour trumps speech when you are trying to figure out what a system is really up to. To say it another way, we would like to identify the actual operant utility functions of these companies, so we can predict what they are really working towards, and what their behaviour and impact might be in the future. Their prior behaviour is the best signal we have! To force the discussion to revolve around "laws" and "right" is to pretend that current ethical positions and laws are optimal and can't be gamed. A superficial inspection will show these premises are false. The ongoing work of governance is to try to figure out economic, social and legal rules that "work" for some consensus definition of "work". That requires a clear understanding of what is actually happening, and good scenario analysis for the range of possible outcomes (including unintended consequences). Maybe that's unrestricted free markets, maybe sometimes it isn't. Maybe it's the law as it currently stands, maybe it isn't.

by gpm 6y ago

jlelse 6y ago

> All the arguments about what company is most evil entirely miss the point. This!

geodel 6y ago

> I'm strongly reminded of the quote "Freedom of speech doesn't protect speech you like; it protects speech you don't like... Modern addendum is "You can have Freedom Of Speech but no guarantee for Freedom After speech." Edit: Just to clarify, It is not my opinion. It is Social media warriors warning people "Free speech is not free of consequences"

DevKoala 6y ago
I struggled to read your comment, but it shouldn’t be ignored. What you are saying is correct.
mercurysmessage 6y ago
"Free speech is not free of consequences" This is absolutely true though? I fail to see your point. You are free to say what you want, and other people are free to criticize you for it. If you don't support the right to criticize, you don't support free speech.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  Depends on the consequences. Usually this is invoked to mean "it's fine for me burn down your business or destroy your life because I don't like you because consequences <grin>" In general, the statement CANNOT be true, because the chilling effect explicitly suppresses free speech -- being a result of consequences. Ergo, consequence (of a particular type) is in fact suppression of free speech.
  - lucisferre 6y ago
    > Usually this is invoked to mean "it's fine for me burn down your business or destroy your life because I don't like you because consequences <grin>" What a ridiculous hyperbole of what it "usually" means.
- geodel 6y ago
  It is more of "free to criticize' vs 'free to destroy livelihood' thing. Some would say both are same or second is just an implementation detail of first.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching).
    - seneca 6y ago
      > Free speech is the right to not be arrested for speaking. It's not the right to not be punched in the face for saying stupid things (there is a separate law for face punching). No, the 1st Amendment is the right to not be arrested for speaking (in the United States). Free Speech is a philosophy that would absolutely cover not committing physical violence against someone for what they say. Violence in response to speech is probably a good starting point for the definition of unfree speech.

jariel 6y ago

The issue is 'anti competitiveness' not 'evil' and most arguments are pointed at that.

gpm 6y ago
Things have improved since I posted this. At the time I posted this the top comment and many other highly voted comments were just criticizing epic, spotify, and tinder. E.g. complaining that epic sells to kids, spotify doesn't pay artists enough, and that tinder sells sex and commits age discrimination. Regardless of whether or not they are valid complaints, they aren't at all related to anti trust (or if they are, no one was bothering to make the connection). This use to be the top comment, for reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 This was the comment that was the tipping point for me making the post, and was at the time ranked fairly highly (hence all the replies to it): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579479
- sarakayakomzin 6y ago
  > Things have improved since I posted this. >Regardless of whether or not they are valid complaints >This use to be the top comment >This was the comment that was the tipping point for me making the post >>> Things have improved since I posted this. I mean, you look at something new and you're going to have low-quality comments based on their first thoughts on something. I don't understand the confusion.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bonaldi 6y ago

The wider context around the specific issues can still be useful in deciding what's "best" (distinct from "right"). EG: look at the antitrust case Apple lost over eBook pricing. The rules said they should lose in order to ensure a fair market for eBooks, a minute's consideration of the wider context said that if they lost Amazon would suck up the entire market. Which it did. The net result, even if narrowly within the rules, was a loss for consumers and for competition

stefan_ 6y ago
No, the rules say organizing a price fixing ring is illegal. The result of which was literally to simultaneously raise prices for consumers across all platforms. It's particularly ironic in this case because the whole point of the exercise for Apple was to increase prices so they could still charge their extortionate 30%. Amazon wasn't remotely that greedy.
- valuearb 6y ago
  That’s the silliest perspective on this case you could have. Apple gave publishers the right to set their own prices, but in return required they don’t undercut those prices on other platforms. Apple had only a a small market share at the time. Publishers could have said, nah, we are happy with Amazon, and refused to agree to Apple’s terms. This is about as clear a free market as one gets, that it became an antitrust issue shows how crazytown antitrust law has become. This was attractive to Publishers because they were terrified of an Amazon monopoly. Amazon selling ebooks at cost did nothing for Publishers long term because it was killing other ebook competitors. This offered a viable competitor to be an ebook outlet. Instead the misguided Justice department and a judge made Apple back down and what do we have now? Exactly what publishers feared, an Amazon monopoly.
  - rebelos 6y ago
    "It's awful that a $2 trillion tech company's price fixing conspiracy flatlined and consumers in 2020 pay really low ebook prices. What is American justice coming to?"

temp667 6y ago

The question from a principle standpoint is - can a company create an area where trust / safety / security are prioritized. T Developers no doubt disagree with this, they have created a web that is filled with crap. Let's be 100% clear about that. Spam calls via voip, spam into email, ddos floods of every sort imaginable, impossible to unsubscribe, cramming and slamming on subscription renewals and the list goes on. They don't want root on your device to help you, but to screw you in enough cases that you shouldn't give them root. Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc. Apple wanted to create their own little world. Phones with updates that keep on getting updated, an app marketplace with much more transparent pricing (lot less fine print), and the list goes on. You need to look at what apple is doing in context. The world on the net developers and hackers here on HN have created is terrible in many ways for many many people. At some point folks are just tied of the endless scams. Now the same folks who trashed a lot of the rest of the web (do you answer your phone when an unkown number calls?) want into the walled apple garden.

spideymans 6y ago
>Trust / security / safety are low low low on the list of almost all startup and other developers "growth hacking" etc. Yeah I find this general argument that developers should be "trusted" with the "freedom" of an "open" ecosystem, with all those happy buzzwords, so off-putting. I mean, sure, I might perhaps trust the small indie developer working out of his basement to not screw me over, but by and large the software that end users are interacting with are coming out of faceless billion dollar behemoths looking to squeeze every dollar out of their users (and associated data) as possible. I have zero reason to trust them, particularly given the conduct of the Internet giants (ahem... Facebook). Perhaps if these businesses had a more user-friendly business model, end users would've been comfortable using a less restrictive mobile software platforms, similar to what we used to have on desktop computers. Facebook et all have reaped what they sowed, and they get zero sympathy from me regarding their App Store situation. They're the reason that users (even on HN) generally celebrate when Apple imposes an ever growing list of privacy restrictions on their activities.
gpm 6y ago
To keep the continuity of discussion, I assume that this comment was posted here because my top level comment was in part a reply to your (temp667's) comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579860 I appreciate the attempt to connect this to the anti-trust suit, but I don't see this as a good justification for why your original critique is relevant for a few reasons: - Many of the practices in your original critique are allowed on (or not prevented by) Apple's app store. The argument you are making here only makes sense as pertaining to anti-trust to the extent that you are critiquing practices that Apple is preventing. - It doesn't particularly matter whether the people trying to overturn Apple's practice are the bad actors, or third parties are, since the lawsuit affects all parties (third party or not) equally. So while you could make a consumer benefit argument based on bad actors (indeed, Apple has tried to in the lawsuit), it makes little to no sense to focus on the parties suing (and simultaneously falls into the trap of just arguing that people you don't like don't deserve justice). On a separate note - I also find the argument for Apple's bundling of services here unconvincing. I have seen no argument for why Apple's curation service needs to be bundled with the phone - which is the prerequisite of the anti trust suit. Consider that apple could perfectly well sell the hardware and OS, and separately sell (or even offer for free) a software package that locks out third party app stores and third party payment providers. Doing so would practically destroy any argument that they are using their monopoly on IPhone hardware and IOs to acquire a monopoly on app distribution and payment services. To the extent that people find the lock in useful, I expect they would install that software package.

munk-a 6y ago

The ethics of speech protection and laws are a complicated subject - I strongly agree that being moral judgements into punishments is a dark road that has led to a lot of racism and other discrimination in the past... but justice isn't blind and unmoving, justice should evolve to reinforce changes in ethical thinking in society at large. There have been several prominent incidents recently that have shown that the portion of legal enforcement relying on societal norms in the US has been broken, I think due to our general acceptance that greed and money are good and having those things means you've succeeded in life. Legal judgments that leave a bad taste in your mouth shouldn't be ignored but examined to see if the laws that we have actually fit the society we're trying to maintain - people shouldn't be arbitrarily persecuted for actions and ex post facto protections are very well intentioned and wisely put in place to protect against some really heinous abuses - but questioning whether the law should be changed to prevent future incidents isn't bad - it's how our legal system evolves.

anm89 6y ago

Well said.

rtikulit 6y ago

I think the discussion and analysis of each company's prior behaviour is exactly on point--the question before humanity in the general case is "what are these companies really up to?" Each (including Apple) has a hidden agenda. They can be both beneficial and harmful. They are not our friends! They deserve our scrutiny, suspicion and supervision. A company is a system that was created to pursue an agenda. That agenda is nothing like the agenda of a typical human individual (except at absurd levels of abstraction) and is not necessarily net-beneficial to actual humans in the short or the long run. It's an axiom of systems analysis that behaviour trumps speech when you are trying to figure out what a system is really up to. To say it another way, we would like to identify the actual operant utility functions of these companies, so we can predict what they are really working towards, and what their behaviour and impact might be in the future. Their prior behaviour is the best signal we have! To force the discussion to revolve around "laws" and "right" is to pretend that current ethical positions and laws are optimal and can't be gamed. A superficial inspection will show these premises are false. The ongoing work of governance is to try to figure out economic, social and legal rules that "work" for some consensus definition of "work". That requires a clear understanding of what is actually happening, and good scenario analysis for the range of possible outcomes (including unintended consequences). Maybe that's unrestricted free markets, maybe sometimes it isn't. Maybe it's the law as it currently stands, maybe it isn't.