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The hypothetical homogeneous group 'they' you refer to doesn't exist. It's billions of people and 'they' feel many ways. By painting with a common brush, you sh

The hypothetical homogeneous group 'they' you refer to doesn't exist. It's billions of people and 'they' feel many ways. By painting with a common brush, you shut down discussions of what could be and encourage fence sitters to give up. Let's talk about why it's possible, easy to do, and how to do it. The more fence sitters you convince that things are possible, pushes the fence further and further towards the other side.

kube-system 5y ago
I disagree. Market targeting, segmentation, and consumer preferences are real things which can be and are routinely measured.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's agreement, not disagreement.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I am saying that the market for people who care about these types of things is objectively niche. Large manufacturers build what they build because they fund the research to know what to build. And they are successful at selling them because they were correct. There might be billions of people buying computers, but the set that has any opinion on boot code signing requirements is not large enough to cause any significant impact on the market as a whole. There are companies that cater to these niche markets, like Pine/Framework/System76/Purism. They are tiny. Dell sells more computers in a single contract than all of these other companies have sold over their entire existence combined.
    - jkepler 5y ago
      True. However, sometimes large buyers, such as governments or enterprises, change their policies towards purchasing requirements. For example, since 2013 France has had an Inter-Ministry Foundation of Free Software[0], which provides the preferred software to be used across France's government, as French law requires preference be given to free software (logiciel libre). What impact might occur if a government like France were to require in the future only RISC V architectures with free boot loaders, of if the US government or a large corporation required use of measured boot to see at boot-time if the boot code or subsequent OS had been compromised? With persistent threat actors and the falling price of processing power, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next ten years some larger organizations (or tens of thousands of small businesses) start demanding this kind if IT security from their vendors. [0] (in French, of course) https://sill.etalab.gouv.fr/fr/software https://sill.etalab.gouv.fr/fr/software and their repo, https://github.com/disic/sill https://github.com/disic/sill.
- jkepler 5y ago
  Exactly the parent commercial it's point: market segments /can/ and do change sizes and their proportional relations. And more people are beginning to understand the importance of security for privacy in a world that is increasingly digital and dependent on information technology.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    Yes, several of these companies have come out of nowhere in the past decade and are now making low single digit millions in revenue. Huge growth, yes, but also, still a rounding error as far as the whole market is concerned.
BoorishBears 5y ago
This is very feel good but falls short of making an actual point. > The hypothetical homogeneous group 'they' you refer to doesn't exist They do exist. Making wrong statements with conviction doesn't make it true. You can look Chromebook sales figures, you can look at the best selling laptops at major retailers, you can look at what's driving record laptop sales, look at price points that are soaring, look at the mobile space... - > It's billions of people and 'they' feel many ways. Which is why we draw conclusions based on a large sample size like I did above. You're never going to be able to consider billions of points of view, so yes, you need to try and find the common thread in their preferences and usages. - > By painting with a common brush, you shut down discussions of what could be and encourage fence sitters to give up. No, by painting with a common brush, you can have actual useful discussions about the reality of things, rather than espousing your own personal whims. - > Let's talk about why it's possible, easy to do, and how to do it. a) Where did my comment say it's impossible? b) It's not easy to do or it wouldn't have existed in the first place. The whole point of my comment is saying that you need to figure out how to do it taking the current reality of things into context. If the world thought how HN does we'd already have bills banning IME and PSB. So it doesn't. You can't pretend that people actually are a little nudge away from caring about this, or you'll quickly find that you're wrong and nothing will have actually changed. - > The more fence sitters you convince that things are possible, pushes the fence further and further towards the other side. Again, what you could do if you believed that fence sitters were some large portion of laptop buyers is do what I've done, show some indications of this. Show us how niche efforts aimed at power users aren't the only rumblings about how awful locked down computing is. What you're doing is still painting a group with a large brush, except you're not even showing us where you got the paint.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Huh? I like your ideas, but I'm not painting. I'm saying "don't paint". If you think of it like a nice dividing line through the people who think stuff can change and the people who don't, the folks on the line are 'on the fence'. You see? If you can convince a few of them (not large swathes of them, just a few), then the line shifts. If we all do that, we can change a lot of minds for good! You get what I mean? So yeah, my recommendation is that we all talk like things are easy to make better, instead of saying, "too late its all over" because you'll encourage more people to try which I assume you agree is a good thing but if not, I guess to each their own.

kube-system 5y ago

I disagree. Market targeting, segmentation, and consumer preferences are real things which can be and are routinely measured.

jacquesm 5y ago
That's agreement, not disagreement.
- kube-system 5y ago
  I am saying that the market for people who care about these types of things is objectively niche. Large manufacturers build what they build because they fund the research to know what to build. And they are successful at selling them because they were correct. There might be billions of people buying computers, but the set that has any opinion on boot code signing requirements is not large enough to cause any significant impact on the market as a whole. There are companies that cater to these niche markets, like Pine/Framework/System76/Purism. They are tiny. Dell sells more computers in a single contract than all of these other companies have sold over their entire existence combined.
  - jkepler 5y ago
    True. However, sometimes large buyers, such as governments or enterprises, change their policies towards purchasing requirements. For example, since 2013 France has had an Inter-Ministry Foundation of Free Software[0], which provides the preferred software to be used across France's government, as French law requires preference be given to free software (logiciel libre). What impact might occur if a government like France were to require in the future only RISC V architectures with free boot loaders, of if the US government or a large corporation required use of measured boot to see at boot-time if the boot code or subsequent OS had been compromised? With persistent threat actors and the falling price of processing power, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next ten years some larger organizations (or tens of thousands of small businesses) start demanding this kind if IT security from their vendors. [0] (in French, of course) https://sill.etalab.gouv.fr/fr/software https://sill.etalab.gouv.fr/fr/software and their repo, https://github.com/disic/sill https://github.com/disic/sill.
jkepler 5y ago
Exactly the parent commercial it's point: market segments /can/ and do change sizes and their proportional relations. And more people are beginning to understand the importance of security for privacy in a world that is increasingly digital and dependent on information technology.
- kube-system 5y ago
  Yes, several of these companies have come out of nowhere in the past decade and are now making low single digit millions in revenue. Huge growth, yes, but also, still a rounding error as far as the whole market is concerned.

BoorishBears 5y ago

This is very feel good but falls short of making an actual point. > The hypothetical homogeneous group 'they' you refer to doesn't exist They do exist. Making wrong statements with conviction doesn't make it true. You can look Chromebook sales figures, you can look at the best selling laptops at major retailers, you can look at what's driving record laptop sales, look at price points that are soaring, look at the mobile space... - > It's billions of people and 'they' feel many ways. Which is why we draw conclusions based on a large sample size like I did above. You're never going to be able to consider billions of points of view, so yes, you need to try and find the common thread in their preferences and usages. - > By painting with a common brush, you shut down discussions of what could be and encourage fence sitters to give up. No, by painting with a common brush, you can have actual useful discussions about the reality of things, rather than espousing your own personal whims. - > Let's talk about why it's possible, easy to do, and how to do it. a) Where did my comment say it's impossible? b) It's not easy to do or it wouldn't have existed in the first place. The whole point of my comment is saying that you need to figure out how to do it taking the current reality of things into context. If the world thought how HN does we'd already have bills banning IME and PSB. So it doesn't. You can't pretend that people actually are a little nudge away from caring about this, or you'll quickly find that you're wrong and nothing will have actually changed. - > The more fence sitters you convince that things are possible, pushes the fence further and further towards the other side. Again, what you could do if you believed that fence sitters were some large portion of laptop buyers is do what I've done, show some indications of this. Show us how niche efforts aimed at power users aren't the only rumblings about how awful locked down computing is. What you're doing is still painting a group with a large brush, except you're not even showing us where you got the paint.

fartcannon 5y ago
Huh? I like your ideas, but I'm not painting. I'm saying "don't paint". If you think of it like a nice dividing line through the people who think stuff can change and the people who don't, the folks on the line are 'on the fence'. You see? If you can convince a few of them (not large swathes of them, just a few), then the line shifts. If we all do that, we can change a lot of minds for good! You get what I mean? So yeah, my recommendation is that we all talk like things are easy to make better, instead of saying, "too late its all over" because you'll encourage more people to try which I assume you agree is a good thing but if not, I guess to each their own.