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Lay off implications about bad faith, please. The argument is not that general purpose computing was a mistake, but that general purpose computing is not neces

Lay off implications about bad faith, please. The argument is not that general purpose computing was a mistake, but that general purpose computing is not necessary and is to some extent counterproductive for the majority of consumers. Consumers moved away from flip phones because they wanted more capable phones, that doesn't mean they largely want capability to the extent of general purpose computing. Consumers will be the judge of whether a platform or product is worth using. Given the unparalleled success of iOS and Apple's locked down ecosystem, it's pretty clear that many find this level of security is very much worth using regardless of imperfect moderation.

danShumway 6y ago
> Lay off implications about bad faith You're right, I crossed a line there. From a market perspective, the problem is that in the short term it might be feasible to build a closed, tightly controlled market that rivals open alternatives, but in the long term general purpose computing acts as a safeguard against market capture and anti-consumer behavior -- and to a certain extent, consumers and markets in general are very bad at optimizing for long-term consequences. The movement of both iOS and Android in this direction would not be as concerning if they didn't hold a duopoly over the entire smartphone market. Apple in particular has faced significant antitrust criticism in this area. Open markets that empower consumers (and I mean that generally -- not just general computing but also home cooking, self-publishing, self-repair and hardware DIY) are the reason why closed-down markets don't degrade and become awful over time. Almost every capability on the modern locked-down iPhone started out as a 3rd-party proof of concept that Apple was later forced to offer in-house alternatives to in order to remain competitive. It benefits even normal users who don't care about general-purpose computing that there be at least one mainstream option on the market where users can fix their own problems without asking a company for permission. And I don't think it's an accident that as Android and iOS have both moved away from that role, that we are now seeing increased calls for antitrust, increased criticisms from developers, and general outright rejection from these companies of new innovations like game streaming. > Given the unparalleled success of iOS and Apple's locked down ecosystem, it's pretty clear that many find this level of security is very much worth using regardless of imperfect moderation I do think it's slightly problematic to assume that users are conscious enough of security to make an educated decision to opt into a locked-down platform, but are not educated enough to avoid flipping a switch in the settings that turns that environment off and on. I don't think that users temporarily become security conscious only when they're in the act of purchasing a phone. The more likely reality is that most users don't think about security or 'openness' at all beyond reputation/advertising, and the vast majority of iPhone users have probably never thought about the tradeoff between open access and security at any point during any of their purchase decisions for any computing device.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  General purpose computing is one possible safeguard, it also has pretty big and clear downsides for many consumers and isn't obviously the right choice for most. And again, the proof is in the pudding. If closed-down markets degrade and become awful over time, the market will eventually reflect and account for that in the future. Long-term consequences eventually materialize into immediate consequences after all. In fact, the market exists to validate lofty claims like yours because history is filled with failed attempts to dictate what people should produce, by minorities like you who believe they know better than the people who buy them. > I do think it's slightly problematic to assume that users are conscious enough of security to make an educated decision to opt into a locked-down platform, but are not educated enough to avoid flipping a switch in the settings that turns that environment off and on. This seems pretty obviously true to me. It's quite easy to realize you suck at security, all you need to do is suffer a security breach or know of one. For example, the Windows era taught many users just how insecure they could be, the lessons were pretty simple. Knowing when to disable security guardrails, however, requires actual security knowledge that most users don't have. We know users usually don't have them because Windows tested this with UAC, which users happily and quickly disabled to allow malicious programs that they didn't really evaluate at all; A long and painful case study in "how to let your users choose to fuck themselves". Of course users don't think about a tradeoff between open access and security, the choice is obvious to them. Security matters and open access doesn't. On the one hand you have the tangible risk of getting your stuff or info stolen, and on the other you have danShumway's nebulous & unproven prophecies of a day that will soon(tm) come where the lack of open access causes stuff to degrade and become awful. I don't personally make the same tradeoff because open access matters more to me personally, but I think the majority of consumers have made legitimate choices for themselves. They know what they want and have made choices to support their desires, same as you or I, and frankly no one should be able to violate their choices.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    > the market will eventually reflect and account for that in the future. Which won't help unless we're willing to break apart duopolies and enforce government antitrust. The point I'm making is that when you get rid of consumers' ability to solve their own problems, they lose the ability to solve their own problems. They don't magically get that ability back when the market starts being terrible. Take a look at Amazon's DRM -- it doesn't matter if you as a consumer wake up one day and realize that there are negative consequences to being unable to port your library to any other devices. You still can't do it. Market capture is not a problem that can be solved by the market on its own, which we've seen repeatedly throughout the history of US markets, including in the computing market. This is why we have regulations around some of the most egregious anti-free-market activities companies can take. For example, it's illegal to use warranties to block unrelated consumer repairs. Car makers are legally required to use some universal interfaces that allow non-manufacturers to repair and alter the vehicle. And we're currently campaigning to get rid of DMCA restrictions on breaking DRM for legal purposes like porting Kindle books to other platforms. None of that is stuff that consumers on their own would prioritize, but they're market conditions that benefit everyone tremendously. These are instances where the free market can't solve the problem on its own, there have to be legislative changes that allow the market to compete. And unless you're currently buying stock in Purism or Windows Phone, I think we both know that the current smartphone market is not set up to allow competition. > which users happily and quickly disabled to allow malicious programs that they didn't really evaluate at all So what makes you think they didn't? You're assuming that consumers are making a rational choice when they purchase a phone, but not when they use the phone. I don't think people's brains stop working when they turn their devices on, I think that we should apply a consistent framework to understand both people's computing usage and their purchasing decisions. > Knowing when to disable security guardrails, however, requires actual security knowledge No, it really doesn't. You can have a big warning that says "this makes your phone insecure" and people don't need to know the details to trust you. Of course, in practice, people ignore those warnings. But there's two ways to interpret that -- either people don't understand security/access at all and we shouldn't treat any of their purchasing decisions on this with reverence, or people are making a security decision not to trust phone manufactures when they uncheck that box, and we shouldn't shame them for having a different risk model than us. I object to any attempt to try and characterize them as somehow being both conscious/unconscious of the risks at the same time, there has to be some consistency in how we talk about those people. How do you know that normal users don't just have a separate threat model than you and that they're willing to uncheck that box because they're consciously deciding to tolerate a greater rate of infection/malware than you find acceptable?

danShumway 6y ago

> Lay off implications about bad faith You're right, I crossed a line there. From a market perspective, the problem is that in the short term it might be feasible to build a closed, tightly controlled market that rivals open alternatives, but in the long term general purpose computing acts as a safeguard against market capture and anti-consumer behavior -- and to a certain extent, consumers and markets in general are very bad at optimizing for long-term consequences. The movement of both iOS and Android in this direction would not be as concerning if they didn't hold a duopoly over the entire smartphone market. Apple in particular has faced significant antitrust criticism in this area. Open markets that empower consumers (and I mean that generally -- not just general computing but also home cooking, self-publishing, self-repair and hardware DIY) are the reason why closed-down markets don't degrade and become awful over time. Almost every capability on the modern locked-down iPhone started out as a 3rd-party proof of concept that Apple was later forced to offer in-house alternatives to in order to remain competitive. It benefits even normal users who don't care about general-purpose computing that there be at least one mainstream option on the market where users can fix their own problems without asking a company for permission. And I don't think it's an accident that as Android and iOS have both moved away from that role, that we are now seeing increased calls for antitrust, increased criticisms from developers, and general outright rejection from these companies of new innovations like game streaming. > Given the unparalleled success of iOS and Apple's locked down ecosystem, it's pretty clear that many find this level of security is very much worth using regardless of imperfect moderation I do think it's slightly problematic to assume that users are conscious enough of security to make an educated decision to opt into a locked-down platform, but are not educated enough to avoid flipping a switch in the settings that turns that environment off and on. I don't think that users temporarily become security conscious only when they're in the act of purchasing a phone. The more likely reality is that most users don't think about security or 'openness' at all beyond reputation/advertising, and the vast majority of iPhone users have probably never thought about the tradeoff between open access and security at any point during any of their purchase decisions for any computing device.

themacguffinman 6y ago
General purpose computing is one possible safeguard, it also has pretty big and clear downsides for many consumers and isn't obviously the right choice for most. And again, the proof is in the pudding. If closed-down markets degrade and become awful over time, the market will eventually reflect and account for that in the future. Long-term consequences eventually materialize into immediate consequences after all. In fact, the market exists to validate lofty claims like yours because history is filled with failed attempts to dictate what people should produce, by minorities like you who believe they know better than the people who buy them. > I do think it's slightly problematic to assume that users are conscious enough of security to make an educated decision to opt into a locked-down platform, but are not educated enough to avoid flipping a switch in the settings that turns that environment off and on. This seems pretty obviously true to me. It's quite easy to realize you suck at security, all you need to do is suffer a security breach or know of one. For example, the Windows era taught many users just how insecure they could be, the lessons were pretty simple. Knowing when to disable security guardrails, however, requires actual security knowledge that most users don't have. We know users usually don't have them because Windows tested this with UAC, which users happily and quickly disabled to allow malicious programs that they didn't really evaluate at all; A long and painful case study in "how to let your users choose to fuck themselves". Of course users don't think about a tradeoff between open access and security, the choice is obvious to them. Security matters and open access doesn't. On the one hand you have the tangible risk of getting your stuff or info stolen, and on the other you have danShumway's nebulous & unproven prophecies of a day that will soon(tm) come where the lack of open access causes stuff to degrade and become awful. I don't personally make the same tradeoff because open access matters more to me personally, but I think the majority of consumers have made legitimate choices for themselves. They know what they want and have made choices to support their desires, same as you or I, and frankly no one should be able to violate their choices.
- danShumway 6y ago
  > the market will eventually reflect and account for that in the future. Which won't help unless we're willing to break apart duopolies and enforce government antitrust. The point I'm making is that when you get rid of consumers' ability to solve their own problems, they lose the ability to solve their own problems. They don't magically get that ability back when the market starts being terrible. Take a look at Amazon's DRM -- it doesn't matter if you as a consumer wake up one day and realize that there are negative consequences to being unable to port your library to any other devices. You still can't do it. Market capture is not a problem that can be solved by the market on its own, which we've seen repeatedly throughout the history of US markets, including in the computing market. This is why we have regulations around some of the most egregious anti-free-market activities companies can take. For example, it's illegal to use warranties to block unrelated consumer repairs. Car makers are legally required to use some universal interfaces that allow non-manufacturers to repair and alter the vehicle. And we're currently campaigning to get rid of DMCA restrictions on breaking DRM for legal purposes like porting Kindle books to other platforms. None of that is stuff that consumers on their own would prioritize, but they're market conditions that benefit everyone tremendously. These are instances where the free market can't solve the problem on its own, there have to be legislative changes that allow the market to compete. And unless you're currently buying stock in Purism or Windows Phone, I think we both know that the current smartphone market is not set up to allow competition. > which users happily and quickly disabled to allow malicious programs that they didn't really evaluate at all So what makes you think they didn't? You're assuming that consumers are making a rational choice when they purchase a phone, but not when they use the phone. I don't think people's brains stop working when they turn their devices on, I think that we should apply a consistent framework to understand both people's computing usage and their purchasing decisions. > Knowing when to disable security guardrails, however, requires actual security knowledge No, it really doesn't. You can have a big warning that says "this makes your phone insecure" and people don't need to know the details to trust you. Of course, in practice, people ignore those warnings. But there's two ways to interpret that -- either people don't understand security/access at all and we shouldn't treat any of their purchasing decisions on this with reverence, or people are making a security decision not to trust phone manufactures when they uncheck that box, and we shouldn't shame them for having a different risk model than us. I object to any attempt to try and characterize them as somehow being both conscious/unconscious of the risks at the same time, there has to be some consistency in how we talk about those people. How do you know that normal users don't just have a separate threat model than you and that they're willing to uncheck that box because they're consciously deciding to tolerate a greater rate of infection/malware than you find acceptable?