8 ms·

Technology as It Should Be

153 points by pelasaco 6y ago

bjarneh 6y ago
> Imagine a world without apps As a long time Nokia N9/Meego user, that world is not hard to imagine.
- nextos 6y ago
  The N770-900 series was even better in some regards. The hardware keyboard found in some models, and the stock Linux userland offered a fantastic experience.
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    I can't believe I'm still bitter about the path Nokia took after all these years, but I am. We were so close to having a truly open + superb OS in our mainstream devices...
    - abdulmuhaimin 6y ago
      trust me, you're not the only one who are still bitter about their idiotic decision. They had a burning ship. But instead of going into their own newly-built submarine, they trust floats full of money handed out by Microsoft. F Im furios everytime this topic is mentioned
      - bjarneh 6y ago
        > But instead of going into their own newly-built submarine It really was an unbelievable move. I've heard from former Nokia employees that part of the reason for this nutty strategy, was internal division inside the company. The vast majority of Nokia supported going forward with their main OS (Symbian), despite very promising results on Meego (despite having a tiny team compared with Symbian). I guess Intel and others had already dropped out of the partnership as well, they were also invested in this (Moblin), but did not invest further in it. By choosing something nobody really liked inside Nokia (Windows Phone), at least they did not choose something half the company really hated.
    - Bluestein 6y ago
      Somebody should make a documentary about the whole thing: "The World That Could Have Been", or some such ... I'd watch it. (Given the pivotal importance of mobile in our world, the title would not be an understatement). There's - also - something to be said about giving people an idea of the "right" thing to yearn for - lust for an endless sea of possibilities, not a drumbeat - as de Saint-Exupéry would put it.-
      - nextos 6y ago
        It was a very strange move. Initially, Nokia had some interest in promoting these devices. The N770 was released in 2005, and the N800 came in 2007, just before the iPhone. I was a student in Scandinavia and my CS department got gifted a few hundred N800 so that students could hack and develop applications. We coded some cool mesh networking tools, and a text chat on top. It felt so futuristic. In parallel, I brought an iPhone 1 from the US and it never felt like a superior device. I recall sitting in a SAS plane in Spring 2007, whose departure was delayed for 1 hour due to technical reasons, and hostesses came to my seat as they were blown away by that little device I was watching some videos on. I also showed them my iPhone, and they were not nearly as impressed. Then, suddenly, before the N9 release they totally dropped the ball. Still, that device won some accolades in the press.
      - bjarneh 6y ago
        Stephan Elop would be the ultimate villain :-)
- weikju 6y ago
  the problem with the premise of the Purism post is based on another article that suggests everything should be done through the web browser, which entails NOT having control of data, software, etc...
- perardi 6y ago
  And that world is Firefox OS, which we are all using right now, right?
  - fsflover 6y ago
    No: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5.
tyre 6y ago
> What people desire from technology is well documented and can be summed up with a series of buzzwords. The difficulty isn’t knowing what society wants, it is knowing the path to get there. > What do we want from our technology? > We want the right to change providers. > We want the right to protect personal data. > We want the right to verify. > We want the right to not be tracked. > We want the right to access. It is well documented that this is not at all what people desire from technology. What people buy directly contradicts this. People _could_ use PGP. They _could_ use strong passwords. They _could_ move to defederated social networks. They _could_ lobby their congressional representatives to break up Apple because their walled garden is a vertical monopoly that harms consumers.* They could do all sorts of things, but they do not. The trade-offs are not worth it to "people". * I don't believe this argument, but it is one.
- animal_spirits 6y ago
  I don't follow these types of arguments that the market is an true indicator of what people actually desire. If you ask anyone on the street if they would like any of these things out of technology they would unanimously say yes. But I agree it is not worth the trade-offs to actually fight for these things for most people. It doesn't mean these things are not desired, it is just that other things are desired more. Also, why do you put the word people in quotations? Just because most aren't interested in pursuing technological freedoms doesn't make them less of a people.
  - tyre 6y ago
    oh I put it in quotations because I was quoting the word the author used. I didn't mean it as "these so-called 'people'", but reading it back I can see how it could read that way. To your first point, I think what people buy does have a reasonable correlation with what they want when there are other options. Taking the costs into account is of course part of the calculation. "They desire it but only if it is free and without any trade-offs whatsoever" isn't a very useful definition of "want".
  - njharman 6y ago
    > If you ask anyone The world makes more sense when you learn that what people say and what they do are almost never the same. This is why markets and other analysis of behavior are greater predictors than polls or surveys or esp anecdotes
rektide 6y ago
To quote once again from one of the most fun romps I've had in sci-fi[1], "May you be ever moving towards perfection." There's a decent check list of basic rights listed in this article, but of the "freedom froms" / negative-liberties variety. But there's little of the real spirit of adventure, of the endless journey forward. Technology as it should be is a vast adaptive positive liberty, a thing that is malleable & flexible & capable of, wherever you are, offering you means to push on further, to express your will & potential, not just in pre-set molds, but in the infinite unimaginable ways the original creators of the technology could never have begun to imagine. [1] https://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/about/ https://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/about/
codezero 6y ago
something that kind of bums me out is that as long as our infrastructure is opaque and requires subscriptions, we'll always be tracked. There's nothing stopping providers from selling your location data, or things like your DNS requests, and that's sad. And what ever is in place is likely not strong enough to really protect you. Same goes for credit cards, license plates etc... lots of services exist to mine that and know more about you.
newscracker 6y ago
This is a very idealistic view that will appeal to a small percentage of people. > What do we want from our technology? What’s missing from this list is that most people want nice things that are affordable (or even “free”) and if they’re expensive, provide a lot more features. They also want things that just work in connecting them (preferably for “free”) to whatever content or people they’re interested in. On the latter, I think the economies of scale are always tilted to favor those who have scaled and can scale (unless the ones with scale become very greedy and/or ignore the competition). It takes ideals and money to support products that are better in protecting some rights we consider important. That excludes a whole lot of people from choosing.
hilbert42 6y ago
I've given up hoping that we can ever get to this stage or even reverse the situation to what it was ca 2000. It seems to me we've lost it for good - for the foreseeable future anyway. My personal action has been to withdraw from most of the net, no Google accounts, no social media accounts, no online shopping etc. Essentially, I've reverted to almost pre net days. I've even reduced email to a trickle, I've killed off subs from list servers etc. My diversity of activity is only a tiny fraction of what it was a decade ago. This is the price I'm prepared to pay but I know I'm one of very few (and that's the key problem - too few people are complaining). I reckon it's lost because even highly intelligent friends of mine some of who have been in security and surveillance work and who know the issues very well and hate the present situation simply find it too exhausting to continue fighting. As they say and as I know, it's an ongoing struggle. Every day, it's a new issue and another battle. For example, I use Linux on PCs where ever possible and my Windows is still Win 7 with automatic updates turned off (because that's as far as I'm prepared to trust Windows), but my caved-in security/surveillance buddies use Win 10 and don't bother to root their Android phones and use Gmail and even Zoom because they complain that they can't fight or are not prepared to fight their families, kids etc. all of whom use social media, Gmail and Win 10 etc., etc. Even I who am more stubborn than most gets criticized by family members who, whilst they have some understanding of the problem, aren't prepared to give up or go cold turkey on these highly addictive products. As I said in other posts about COVID-19, I can't understand why people can't enjoy the isolation like I do (I've so much to occupy me I can't get bored). This is the problem, whilst I'm prepared to give up the net's goodies, Big Tech's adductive products, my family and so many others are just not prepared to do so. This was the true genius of those in Big Tech - I detest them with a passion for ruining the net, but I give them 11/10 for brilliance - for developing schemes that make them billions of which ordinary punters, once trapped, have no means of escape from. Essentially, most people on the planet are so in love with their 'free' Big Tech toys that they not prepared to give them up. As such, there's no pressure on governments to do anything about the situation. We're in the same position with copywrite and patent laws - people aren't marching in the streets, throwing stones through the RIAA's or writer's guild windows, so nothing ever happens. The other problem is that calls like this, whilst very common, aren't consolidated into a worldwide movement, and in my opinion, that's the real crux of our problem. Until there's common unity nothing will happen. Unity and consolidation is everything. All disparate groups need to be brought together. For example, the right to repair groups have similar aims - they too must be included. As I've said, I don't see this happening anytime soon - as too many of those I've mentioned are also addicted to Big Tech's electronic heroin, so it remains a lost cause. I just wish it weren't so.
losvedir 6y ago
> Shira Ovide asks “a wild question: What if we played games, shopped, watched Netflix and read news on our smartphones — without using apps? Our smartphones, like our computers, would instead mostly be gateways to go online through a web browser.” Correct me if I'm wrong but the iPhone actually did start that way, right? Apple only added an app store after the fact, because web apps weren't fast and functional enough, and the app store was a huge success with consumers. I imagine in this alternate universe where web apps take off because Apple adds support for nonstandard functionality to Safari to accommodate user needs, people would be upset with them as well. And at least for watching Netflix, reading news, shopping, and playing games, well, you can do that in a phone web browser now.
- perardi 6y ago
  It’s arguable that Apple launched without an app store because they were still cleaning up APIs and coming up with a plan. (And, arguably wise, if so. Apple Watch came out with door with an awful development experience.) But, yeah, that’s what they started with. And WebOS. And Firefox OS. Where are those web-only operating systems now?
  - ta8645 6y ago
    Seems like WebAssembly would allow for success where it previously failed.
    - Animats 6y ago
      WebAssembly lets you do all the things you could do with Java in the browser. And which weren't done.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        With the plus that now a generation advocates it as if it was the very first of its kind.
      - ta8645 6y ago
seltzered_ 6y ago
"In Imagine a world without apps Shira Ovide asks “a wild question: What if we played games, shopped, watched Netflix and read news on our smartphones — without using apps? Our smartphones, like our computers, would instead mostly be gateways to go online through a web browser.” This question can be extrapolated into a larger question: “What do we want from our technology?"" To quote Bret Victor, "Toolkits, not Apps" : https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/881021457593057280 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/881021457593057280 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw&t=4m19s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw&t=4m19s Jumping straight into talk about providers, personal data, security, etc. assumes cultural scaffolds of 'personal' around the device. That's fine, but the assumption needs to be made aware.
snicker7 6y ago
> Other such claims from Big Tech would require verifying code, and to do that properly all code should be released under freedom respecting licenses. That is ... a stretch, especially considering that there exists non-free "source available" software (e.g. Unreal).
thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
"Technology as YOU think it should be" Romanticism is fun but not great for thinking for the future.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Romanticism works very well sometimes, see GPL license.
  - thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
    touché
dgreensp 6y ago
As others have pointed out, "people" probably don't really value these "wants" that much, relative to more practical matters. I'm not sure how you could show that they do. That's not to say I don't think they are the right thing. I also think web vs. native is a red herring (at least for the purposes of this article). The problem as I see it is software is not developed as interoperable "components," and it's getting worse. At least you can store a text file on your hard drive, sync it with Dropbox, and edit it with the editor of your choice — meaning app, file format, and storage are separate concerns — but for a web app or cloud-backed native app, these distinctions may not exist, as the representation and storage of a document are completely hidden. Apps have always been pretty monolithic to start with, often with proprietary file formats and limited interoperability. Then there are social networks. Theoretically, Facebook, LinkedIn, et al. could all use a common protocol analogous to SMTP. Email and the web are success stories of standardization and interoperability. Browsers are very highly interchangeable for a very complex document type! However, it's made less exciting by the fact that the web is being used to deliver software written to a standardized API, not to collaborate on documents and information using standardized formats and representations, and not to connect and communicate using common protocols. The relationship between interoperable software components and making technology available to society: When we have a ubiquitous standard and a go-to, legally usable implementation for X, I feel like we can say we "have the technology" to do X, as a society. For example, we have JPEG and libjpeg. We have the technology to compress (to JPEG's level of ability), store, and exchange images. Is the technology to, say, collaborate in real-time on a spreadsheet available to society? Is there a go-to implementation and a document explaining exactly how it is designed to work? I'm not saying the world is wrong and should be a different way (e.g. social media sites should all use a common protocol). Obviously there are reasons we got here, and there is no simple argument that things could or should be drastically different. If the root-cause analysis were continued, I would look at how software is developed, how it is funded and monetized, and so on. Nobody was funding OpenSSL development, for example, even though it was a ubiquitous implementation of a ubiquitous standard and a great example of everybody reusing the same component. Companies like IBM and Microsoft, selling suites of business software in the 20th century, were building monolithic office solutions and not small interoperable tools, for business reasons, while Unix took the polar opposite philosophy.
erlend_sh 6y ago
I want to add one: We want the right to transparent supply chains Purism is doing great work, but to me everything in that list comes second to the assurance that my technology purchase isn’t subsidized by underprivileged people’s suffering, as is the case with most un-vetted producers of digital hardware in China and most of Asia. If we’re gonna talk about crucial market corrections, this has to be #1 on the list. Any digital hardware manufacturer who wants to be part of the solution should be entering into a partnership with Fairphone to set their supply chain straight. I’ll start caring about the openness of my phone once you can assure me that the production of it was cruelty-free.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  Open systems are important to distribute knowledge and ideas to future generations without enslaving them to certain ecosystems and it would especially enable developing markets where access to education is more difficult. Still, you are correct, it is possible to have safe and healthy working conditions without a problem. I just think there is no conflict if we try to achieve both.
  - erlend_sh 6y ago
    Yep. Rather than being mutually exclusive, the two ideals are in fact highly complementary. That’s why a collaboration between Fairphone and Purism would be an exceedingly beautiful thing, as they’ve made compromises on opposite ends.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  That's a very good point, and puts things in perspective. Buying an ethically sourced computer does more for freedom than buying a computer with zero proprietary software or firmware. As things stand, it's possible, but severely constraining, to insist on a laptop that has no proprietary software. [0] As far as I know, it's not possible to buy an ethically sourced laptop. [0] https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops
a_imho 6y ago
Spot on, good points and sensible analysis.
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I feel that usability is the single biggest issue in technology, these days. In my opinion, what makes products successful, is that they provide a usable path through their principal workflow. It seems to trump eye candy and (I hate to admit) even quality. Basically, even if the quality is bad, and the interface spartan; if the workflow is smooth and intuitive (not “dumb,” but grokkable), then the project has a real chance for success. Simplicity is often mistaken for usability. In my experience, they are not necessarily analogous. If anyone has ever used a Japanese train schedule, they know that it’s possible to present a complex system in a fashion that, after “training,” becomes intuitive. It seems that the “sweet spot” is an interface that may not be immediately apparent, but “gets out of the way,” once the user gets going.
etherio 6y ago
I think this is an interesting post and agree with the ideas, however I do have something to point out about this section: > What people desire from technology is well documented and can be summed up with a series of buzzwords. The difficulty isn’t knowing what society wants, it is knowing the path to get there. Now I am one of those people who does desire this from tech products. But admittedly, the general population ("people") does not care that much. At least from my experience, people care more about the quality of the product and its ease of use. By far much more than the encryption of data etc... This doesnt mean I don't think companies should make efforts in this direction, but I think it's important not to project these aspirations to more mainstream people who don't care
sbuk 6y ago
I notice that their laptop chargers are not using the now-ubiquitous and standards compliant USB-C interface. I currently work with a ThinkPad X280 and a MPB, both of which use a USB-C port. Seems like an odd decision on Purism's part, especially give that the charging method used for the Librem 5. Nice looking kit otherwise.
emptyparadise 6y ago
I had a Windows phone and it allowed me to use a bunch of social networks in the same feed, without needing specific apps. I could open a contact and see their latest posts without needing to go to a specific app. That was pretty great and I miss it. Every app being a locked down island of its own is pretty sad.
viktorcode 6y ago
The very first paragraph gets it wrong. Imagining the world without apps is not hard; we live in this world. We can do almost anything through the browser in our smartphones, but prefer to use apps instead.
KaiserPro 6y ago
The problem with this argument is that it only works for a small minority of tech people. What the vast majority of people want is something that is easy, safe and does what they want. Until a free(as in libertarian) system pops up that can do those three things its not going to be going concern. I have an iphone, why? not because its cool, its because its easy. I am fairly certain that an app from the store isn't going to steal my stuff, and is going to work as advertised (assuming the rating system is accurate) Having had an opensource phone (of sorts) I much prefer the apple walled garden....

153 points by pelasaco 6y ago

bjarneh 6y ago

> Imagine a world without apps As a long time Nokia N9/Meego user, that world is not hard to imagine.

nextos 6y ago
The N770-900 series was even better in some regards. The hardware keyboard found in some models, and the stock Linux userland offered a fantastic experience.
- bjarneh 6y ago
  I can't believe I'm still bitter about the path Nokia took after all these years, but I am. We were so close to having a truly open + superb OS in our mainstream devices...
  - abdulmuhaimin 6y ago
    trust me, you're not the only one who are still bitter about their idiotic decision. They had a burning ship. But instead of going into their own newly-built submarine, they trust floats full of money handed out by Microsoft. F Im furios everytime this topic is mentioned
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      > But instead of going into their own newly-built submarine It really was an unbelievable move. I've heard from former Nokia employees that part of the reason for this nutty strategy, was internal division inside the company. The vast majority of Nokia supported going forward with their main OS (Symbian), despite very promising results on Meego (despite having a tiny team compared with Symbian). I guess Intel and others had already dropped out of the partnership as well, they were also invested in this (Moblin), but did not invest further in it. By choosing something nobody really liked inside Nokia (Windows Phone), at least they did not choose something half the company really hated.
  - Bluestein 6y ago
    Somebody should make a documentary about the whole thing: "The World That Could Have Been", or some such ... I'd watch it. (Given the pivotal importance of mobile in our world, the title would not be an understatement). There's - also - something to be said about giving people an idea of the "right" thing to yearn for - lust for an endless sea of possibilities, not a drumbeat - as de Saint-Exupéry would put it.-
    - nextos 6y ago
      It was a very strange move. Initially, Nokia had some interest in promoting these devices. The N770 was released in 2005, and the N800 came in 2007, just before the iPhone. I was a student in Scandinavia and my CS department got gifted a few hundred N800 so that students could hack and develop applications. We coded some cool mesh networking tools, and a text chat on top. It felt so futuristic. In parallel, I brought an iPhone 1 from the US and it never felt like a superior device. I recall sitting in a SAS plane in Spring 2007, whose departure was delayed for 1 hour due to technical reasons, and hostesses came to my seat as they were blown away by that little device I was watching some videos on. I also showed them my iPhone, and they were not nearly as impressed. Then, suddenly, before the N9 release they totally dropped the ball. Still, that device won some accolades in the press.
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      Stephan Elop would be the ultimate villain :-)
weikju 6y ago
the problem with the premise of the Purism post is based on another article that suggests everything should be done through the web browser, which entails NOT having control of data, software, etc...
perardi 6y ago
And that world is Firefox OS, which we are all using right now, right?
- fsflover 6y ago
  No: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5.

tyre 6y ago

> What people desire from technology is well documented and can be summed up with a series of buzzwords. The difficulty isn’t knowing what society wants, it is knowing the path to get there. > What do we want from our technology? > We want the right to change providers. > We want the right to protect personal data. > We want the right to verify. > We want the right to not be tracked. > We want the right to access. It is well documented that this is not at all what people desire from technology. What people buy directly contradicts this. People _could_ use PGP. They _could_ use strong passwords. They _could_ move to defederated social networks. They _could_ lobby their congressional representatives to break up Apple because their walled garden is a vertical monopoly that harms consumers.* They could do all sorts of things, but they do not. The trade-offs are not worth it to "people". * I don't believe this argument, but it is one.

animal_spirits 6y ago
I don't follow these types of arguments that the market is an true indicator of what people actually desire. If you ask anyone on the street if they would like any of these things out of technology they would unanimously say yes. But I agree it is not worth the trade-offs to actually fight for these things for most people. It doesn't mean these things are not desired, it is just that other things are desired more. Also, why do you put the word people in quotations? Just because most aren't interested in pursuing technological freedoms doesn't make them less of a people.
- tyre 6y ago
  oh I put it in quotations because I was quoting the word the author used. I didn't mean it as "these so-called 'people'", but reading it back I can see how it could read that way. To your first point, I think what people buy does have a reasonable correlation with what they want when there are other options. Taking the costs into account is of course part of the calculation. "They desire it but only if it is free and without any trade-offs whatsoever" isn't a very useful definition of "want".
- njharman 6y ago
  > If you ask anyone The world makes more sense when you learn that what people say and what they do are almost never the same. This is why markets and other analysis of behavior are greater predictors than polls or surveys or esp anecdotes

rektide 6y ago

To quote once again from one of the most fun romps I've had in sci-fi[1], "May you be ever moving towards perfection." There's a decent check list of basic rights listed in this article, but of the "freedom froms" / negative-liberties variety. But there's little of the real spirit of adventure, of the endless journey forward. Technology as it should be is a vast adaptive positive liberty, a thing that is malleable & flexible & capable of, wherever you are, offering you means to push on further, to express your will & potential, not just in pre-set molds, but in the infinite unimaginable ways the original creators of the technology could never have begun to imagine. [1] https://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/about/ https://www.davidlouisedelman.com/jump225/infoquake/about/

codezero 6y ago

something that kind of bums me out is that as long as our infrastructure is opaque and requires subscriptions, we'll always be tracked. There's nothing stopping providers from selling your location data, or things like your DNS requests, and that's sad. And what ever is in place is likely not strong enough to really protect you. Same goes for credit cards, license plates etc... lots of services exist to mine that and know more about you.

newscracker 6y ago

This is a very idealistic view that will appeal to a small percentage of people. > What do we want from our technology? What’s missing from this list is that most people want nice things that are affordable (or even “free”) and if they’re expensive, provide a lot more features. They also want things that just work in connecting them (preferably for “free”) to whatever content or people they’re interested in. On the latter, I think the economies of scale are always tilted to favor those who have scaled and can scale (unless the ones with scale become very greedy and/or ignore the competition). It takes ideals and money to support products that are better in protecting some rights we consider important. That excludes a whole lot of people from choosing.

hilbert42 6y ago

I've given up hoping that we can ever get to this stage or even reverse the situation to what it was ca 2000. It seems to me we've lost it for good - for the foreseeable future anyway. My personal action has been to withdraw from most of the net, no Google accounts, no social media accounts, no online shopping etc. Essentially, I've reverted to almost pre net days. I've even reduced email to a trickle, I've killed off subs from list servers etc. My diversity of activity is only a tiny fraction of what it was a decade ago. This is the price I'm prepared to pay but I know I'm one of very few (and that's the key problem - too few people are complaining). I reckon it's lost because even highly intelligent friends of mine some of who have been in security and surveillance work and who know the issues very well and hate the present situation simply find it too exhausting to continue fighting. As they say and as I know, it's an ongoing struggle. Every day, it's a new issue and another battle. For example, I use Linux on PCs where ever possible and my Windows is still Win 7 with automatic updates turned off (because that's as far as I'm prepared to trust Windows), but my caved-in security/surveillance buddies use Win 10 and don't bother to root their Android phones and use Gmail and even Zoom because they complain that they can't fight or are not prepared to fight their families, kids etc. all of whom use social media, Gmail and Win 10 etc., etc. Even I who am more stubborn than most gets criticized by family members who, whilst they have some understanding of the problem, aren't prepared to give up or go cold turkey on these highly addictive products. As I said in other posts about COVID-19, I can't understand why people can't enjoy the isolation like I do (I've so much to occupy me I can't get bored). This is the problem, whilst I'm prepared to give up the net's goodies, Big Tech's adductive products, my family and so many others are just not prepared to do so. This was the true genius of those in Big Tech - I detest them with a passion for ruining the net, but I give them 11/10 for brilliance - for developing schemes that make them billions of which ordinary punters, once trapped, have no means of escape from. Essentially, most people on the planet are so in love with their 'free' Big Tech toys that they not prepared to give them up. As such, there's no pressure on governments to do anything about the situation. We're in the same position with copywrite and patent laws - people aren't marching in the streets, throwing stones through the RIAA's or writer's guild windows, so nothing ever happens. The other problem is that calls like this, whilst very common, aren't consolidated into a worldwide movement, and in my opinion, that's the real crux of our problem. Until there's common unity nothing will happen. Unity and consolidation is everything. All disparate groups need to be brought together. For example, the right to repair groups have similar aims - they too must be included. As I've said, I don't see this happening anytime soon - as too many of those I've mentioned are also addicted to Big Tech's electronic heroin, so it remains a lost cause. I just wish it weren't so.

losvedir 6y ago

> Shira Ovide asks “a wild question: What if we played games, shopped, watched Netflix and read news on our smartphones — without using apps? Our smartphones, like our computers, would instead mostly be gateways to go online through a web browser.” Correct me if I'm wrong but the iPhone actually did start that way, right? Apple only added an app store after the fact, because web apps weren't fast and functional enough, and the app store was a huge success with consumers. I imagine in this alternate universe where web apps take off because Apple adds support for nonstandard functionality to Safari to accommodate user needs, people would be upset with them as well. And at least for watching Netflix, reading news, shopping, and playing games, well, you can do that in a phone web browser now.

perardi 6y ago
It’s arguable that Apple launched without an app store because they were still cleaning up APIs and coming up with a plan. (And, arguably wise, if so. Apple Watch came out with door with an awful development experience.) But, yeah, that’s what they started with. And WebOS. And Firefox OS. Where are those web-only operating systems now?
- ta8645 6y ago
  Seems like WebAssembly would allow for success where it previously failed.
  - Animats 6y ago
    WebAssembly lets you do all the things you could do with Java in the browser. And which weren't done.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      With the plus that now a generation advocates it as if it was the very first of its kind.
    - ta8645 6y ago

seltzered_ 6y ago

"In Imagine a world without apps Shira Ovide asks “a wild question: What if we played games, shopped, watched Netflix and read news on our smartphones — without using apps? Our smartphones, like our computers, would instead mostly be gateways to go online through a web browser.” This question can be extrapolated into a larger question: “What do we want from our technology?"" To quote Bret Victor, "Toolkits, not Apps" : https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/881021457593057280 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/881021457593057280 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw&t=4m19s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnrlSqtpOkw&t=4m19s Jumping straight into talk about providers, personal data, security, etc. assumes cultural scaffolds of 'personal' around the device. That's fine, but the assumption needs to be made aware.

snicker7 6y ago

> Other such claims from Big Tech would require verifying code, and to do that properly all code should be released under freedom respecting licenses. That is ... a stretch, especially considering that there exists non-free "source available" software (e.g. Unreal).

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago

"Technology as YOU think it should be" Romanticism is fun but not great for thinking for the future.

fsflover 6y ago
Romanticism works very well sometimes, see GPL license.
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
  touché

dgreensp 6y ago

As others have pointed out, "people" probably don't really value these "wants" that much, relative to more practical matters. I'm not sure how you could show that they do. That's not to say I don't think they are the right thing. I also think web vs. native is a red herring (at least for the purposes of this article). The problem as I see it is software is not developed as interoperable "components," and it's getting worse. At least you can store a text file on your hard drive, sync it with Dropbox, and edit it with the editor of your choice — meaning app, file format, and storage are separate concerns — but for a web app or cloud-backed native app, these distinctions may not exist, as the representation and storage of a document are completely hidden. Apps have always been pretty monolithic to start with, often with proprietary file formats and limited interoperability. Then there are social networks. Theoretically, Facebook, LinkedIn, et al. could all use a common protocol analogous to SMTP. Email and the web are success stories of standardization and interoperability. Browsers are very highly interchangeable for a very complex document type! However, it's made less exciting by the fact that the web is being used to deliver software written to a standardized API, not to collaborate on documents and information using standardized formats and representations, and not to connect and communicate using common protocols. The relationship between interoperable software components and making technology available to society: When we have a ubiquitous standard and a go-to, legally usable implementation for X, I feel like we can say we "have the technology" to do X, as a society. For example, we have JPEG and libjpeg. We have the technology to compress (to JPEG's level of ability), store, and exchange images. Is the technology to, say, collaborate in real-time on a spreadsheet available to society? Is there a go-to implementation and a document explaining exactly how it is designed to work? I'm not saying the world is wrong and should be a different way (e.g. social media sites should all use a common protocol). Obviously there are reasons we got here, and there is no simple argument that things could or should be drastically different. If the root-cause analysis were continued, I would look at how software is developed, how it is funded and monetized, and so on. Nobody was funding OpenSSL development, for example, even though it was a ubiquitous implementation of a ubiquitous standard and a great example of everybody reusing the same component. Companies like IBM and Microsoft, selling suites of business software in the 20th century, were building monolithic office solutions and not small interoperable tools, for business reasons, while Unix took the polar opposite philosophy.

erlend_sh 6y ago

I want to add one: We want the right to transparent supply chains Purism is doing great work, but to me everything in that list comes second to the assurance that my technology purchase isn’t subsidized by underprivileged people’s suffering, as is the case with most un-vetted producers of digital hardware in China and most of Asia. If we’re gonna talk about crucial market corrections, this has to be #1 on the list. Any digital hardware manufacturer who wants to be part of the solution should be entering into a partnership with Fairphone to set their supply chain straight. I’ll start caring about the openness of my phone once you can assure me that the production of it was cruelty-free.

raxxorrax 6y ago
Open systems are important to distribute knowledge and ideas to future generations without enslaving them to certain ecosystems and it would especially enable developing markets where access to education is more difficult. Still, you are correct, it is possible to have safe and healthy working conditions without a problem. I just think there is no conflict if we try to achieve both.
- erlend_sh 6y ago
  Yep. Rather than being mutually exclusive, the two ideals are in fact highly complementary. That’s why a collaboration between Fairphone and Purism would be an exceedingly beautiful thing, as they’ve made compromises on opposite ends.
MaxBarraclough 6y ago
That's a very good point, and puts things in perspective. Buying an ethically sourced computer does more for freedom than buying a computer with zero proprietary software or firmware. As things stand, it's possible, but severely constraining, to insist on a laptop that has no proprietary software. [0] As far as I know, it's not possible to buy an ethically sourced laptop. [0] https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops

a_imho 6y ago

Spot on, good points and sensible analysis.

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I feel that usability is the single biggest issue in technology, these days. In my opinion, what makes products successful, is that they provide a usable path through their principal workflow. It seems to trump eye candy and (I hate to admit) even quality. Basically, even if the quality is bad, and the interface spartan; if the workflow is smooth and intuitive (not “dumb,” but grokkable), then the project has a real chance for success. Simplicity is often mistaken for usability. In my experience, they are not necessarily analogous. If anyone has ever used a Japanese train schedule, they know that it’s possible to present a complex system in a fashion that, after “training,” becomes intuitive. It seems that the “sweet spot” is an interface that may not be immediately apparent, but “gets out of the way,” once the user gets going.

etherio 6y ago

I think this is an interesting post and agree with the ideas, however I do have something to point out about this section: > What people desire from technology is well documented and can be summed up with a series of buzzwords. The difficulty isn’t knowing what society wants, it is knowing the path to get there. Now I am one of those people who does desire this from tech products. But admittedly, the general population ("people") does not care that much. At least from my experience, people care more about the quality of the product and its ease of use. By far much more than the encryption of data etc... This doesnt mean I don't think companies should make efforts in this direction, but I think it's important not to project these aspirations to more mainstream people who don't care

sbuk 6y ago

I notice that their laptop chargers are not using the now-ubiquitous and standards compliant USB-C interface. I currently work with a ThinkPad X280 and a MPB, both of which use a USB-C port. Seems like an odd decision on Purism's part, especially give that the charging method used for the Librem 5. Nice looking kit otherwise.

emptyparadise 6y ago

I had a Windows phone and it allowed me to use a bunch of social networks in the same feed, without needing specific apps. I could open a contact and see their latest posts without needing to go to a specific app. That was pretty great and I miss it. Every app being a locked down island of its own is pretty sad.

viktorcode 6y ago

The very first paragraph gets it wrong. Imagining the world without apps is not hard; we live in this world. We can do almost anything through the browser in our smartphones, but prefer to use apps instead.

KaiserPro 6y ago

The problem with this argument is that it only works for a small minority of tech people. What the vast majority of people want is something that is easy, safe and does what they want. Until a free(as in libertarian) system pops up that can do those three things its not going to be going concern. I have an iphone, why? not because its cool, its because its easy. I am fairly certain that an app from the store isn't going to steal my stuff, and is going to work as advertised (assuming the rating system is accurate) Having had an opensource phone (of sorts) I much prefer the apple walled garden....