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It may be in FB's best interest, but I would prefer we approach it by asking "Will this help consumers, users, and independent developers?", instead of "Will th

by ve55 6y ago

It may be in FB's best interest, but I would prefer we approach it by asking "Will this help consumers, users, and independent developers?", instead of "Will this help FB? Because if so, count me out".

zepto 6y ago
It’s not going to help consumers and independent developers. Facebook and a preparing the case and does not care at all about either group, except perhaps to be able to take a slice of the action themselves. If the Facebook app was also an App Store, we’d be in a much worse situation than we are now. Some kind of intervention in the market might help those groups. This has absolutely nothing to do with that. It’s just dressed up in that language to mislead people about what it’s intent is.
- dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
  One can just as easily say “Apple doesn’t care about the users, they’re just trying to make money selling phones and getting a bigger cut of transactions that happen on the phone”. These sorts of statements are somewhat true, but ultimately not relevant to law or public policy. In reality you’d find that companies are composed of individuals with a diverse range of motivations. If you find yourself unable to contemplate that the thousands of people at company X as something other than a unified blob of evil, it might be a useful exercise to seek other perspectives and practice some empathy. It’ll make the world easier to understand.
  - zepto 6y ago
    ‘One can just as easily say “Apple doesn’t care about the users, they’re just trying to make money selling phones and getting a bigger cut of transactions that happen on the phone”.’ Yes one can, and one can make a case for that based on the aggregate of the companies behavior and statements of their executives. If you don’t look at the actual companies, it’s easy to make a false equivalence like this. In this case actually looking at Facebook’s behavior, incentive structure, and the statements of its executives support the position I have taken.
    - dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
      Looking at the company’s behavior and incentive structure is definitely more relevant than trying to read the tea leaves of motivations. Facebook’s business is getting paid by companies to help them sell goods and services to consumers. Facebook is claiming that Apple’s changes make it harder for them to do that. Don’t Facebook’s claims match its incentives here?
      - zepto 6y ago
        Your description of Facebook’s business is incomplete. Facebook’s business is getting paid by companies to help them sell goods and services to consumers by tracking user behavior without consent so that they. can sell targeted ads, and by keeping users engaged with the ad delivery platform by presenting content algorithmically selected to provoke emotional reactions. Those are the incentives.
        dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
        You’re just expressing that you have some beef with the company, not making an argument about the lawsuit. You could similarly talk about how Apple depends on sweatshops to increase margins.
        zepto 6y ago
        Erm, no - nothing I just said is about expressive a beef. It’s just a description of Facebook’s core business. If Apple does use ‘sweatshops’, which they clearly do to some extent, that is a marginal part of their business, and not part of their business model at all. Selling Ads is what Facebook gets paid for. Targetting ads is why they can charge a premium for those ads. Keeping users engaged to content is how they reliably deliver a large volume of ads. This is their business.
        dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
        You said: > by tracking user behavior without consent so that they. can sell targeted ads, and by keeping users engaged with the ad delivery platform by presenting content algorithmically selected to provoke emotional reactions. Some things in here are the core business model, others are implementation choices that don’t have to be true (like the sweatshops). I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that the lawsuit should fail because they didn’t lead it with a list of complaints people have about the company (not would I expect Apple to include the same in their response).
- objc 6y ago
  > It’s not going to help consumers and independent developers. Developer here, top mod of /r/iOSProgramming. Making iOS an open platform will _absolutely_ help developers AND consumers for a myriad of reasons. Facebook being able to open their own app store means ANYONE can distribute their own apps, which is GOOD because that's how the web works and how every other general purpose computing platform works (Windows, macOS, even Android). See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25375711&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25375711&p=2 I encourage you to read the full lawsuit, as it outlines the harm Apple is actively doing to its users and developers: https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf
  - zepto 6y ago
    I’m a developer too. “which is GOOD because that's how the web works and how every other general purpose computing platform works” What’s good is that we have these alternatives. The web is a shit medium for application delivery and people don’t trust it. Android is much less trusted for app delivery than iOS because the store is less policed. Forcing alternative stores on users will erode trust in the platform as well as creating fragmentation, and developers will definitely suffer. If you don’t like the 30% fee - that can be solved, buy let’s not destroy the only trustworthy app market.

by ve55 6y ago

zepto 6y ago

It’s not going to help consumers and independent developers. Facebook and a preparing the case and does not care at all about either group, except perhaps to be able to take a slice of the action themselves. If the Facebook app was also an App Store, we’d be in a much worse situation than we are now. Some kind of intervention in the market might help those groups. This has absolutely nothing to do with that. It’s just dressed up in that language to mislead people about what it’s intent is.

dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
One can just as easily say “Apple doesn’t care about the users, they’re just trying to make money selling phones and getting a bigger cut of transactions that happen on the phone”. These sorts of statements are somewhat true, but ultimately not relevant to law or public policy. In reality you’d find that companies are composed of individuals with a diverse range of motivations. If you find yourself unable to contemplate that the thousands of people at company X as something other than a unified blob of evil, it might be a useful exercise to seek other perspectives and practice some empathy. It’ll make the world easier to understand.
- zepto 6y ago
  ‘One can just as easily say “Apple doesn’t care about the users, they’re just trying to make money selling phones and getting a bigger cut of transactions that happen on the phone”.’ Yes one can, and one can make a case for that based on the aggregate of the companies behavior and statements of their executives. If you don’t look at the actual companies, it’s easy to make a false equivalence like this. In this case actually looking at Facebook’s behavior, incentive structure, and the statements of its executives support the position I have taken.
  - dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
    Looking at the company’s behavior and incentive structure is definitely more relevant than trying to read the tea leaves of motivations. Facebook’s business is getting paid by companies to help them sell goods and services to consumers. Facebook is claiming that Apple’s changes make it harder for them to do that. Don’t Facebook’s claims match its incentives here?
    - zepto 6y ago
      Your description of Facebook’s business is incomplete. Facebook’s business is getting paid by companies to help them sell goods and services to consumers by tracking user behavior without consent so that they. can sell targeted ads, and by keeping users engaged with the ad delivery platform by presenting content algorithmically selected to provoke emotional reactions. Those are the incentives.
      - dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
        You’re just expressing that you have some beef with the company, not making an argument about the lawsuit. You could similarly talk about how Apple depends on sweatshops to increase margins.
        zepto 6y ago
        Erm, no - nothing I just said is about expressive a beef. It’s just a description of Facebook’s core business. If Apple does use ‘sweatshops’, which they clearly do to some extent, that is a marginal part of their business, and not part of their business model at all. Selling Ads is what Facebook gets paid for. Targetting ads is why they can charge a premium for those ads. Keeping users engaged to content is how they reliably deliver a large volume of ads. This is their business.
        dhnajsjdnd 6y ago
        You said: > by tracking user behavior without consent so that they. can sell targeted ads, and by keeping users engaged with the ad delivery platform by presenting content algorithmically selected to provoke emotional reactions. Some things in here are the core business model, others are implementation choices that don’t have to be true (like the sweatshops). I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that the lawsuit should fail because they didn’t lead it with a list of complaints people have about the company (not would I expect Apple to include the same in their response).
objc 6y ago
> It’s not going to help consumers and independent developers. Developer here, top mod of /r/iOSProgramming. Making iOS an open platform will _absolutely_ help developers AND consumers for a myriad of reasons. Facebook being able to open their own app store means ANYONE can distribute their own apps, which is GOOD because that's how the web works and how every other general purpose computing platform works (Windows, macOS, even Android). See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25375711&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25375711&p=2 I encourage you to read the full lawsuit, as it outlines the harm Apple is actively doing to its users and developers: https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf
- zepto 6y ago
  I’m a developer too. “which is GOOD because that's how the web works and how every other general purpose computing platform works” What’s good is that we have these alternatives. The web is a shit medium for application delivery and people don’t trust it. Android is much less trusted for app delivery than iOS because the store is less policed. Forcing alternative stores on users will erode trust in the platform as well as creating fragmentation, and developers will definitely suffer. If you don’t like the 30% fee - that can be solved, buy let’s not destroy the only trustworthy app market.