12 ms·

On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't

by shmel 4y ago

On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network effect. If FB goes nuclear on me, I will lose the main platform to discover local events (like gigs, festivals, meetups and such), pretty much the only social media for a hobby of mine (photography) and the most popular messenger used by family members (ok, I could probably convince them to move elsewhere) and lots of local group chats (multiple attempts to move those group chats on telegram ultimately failed). Most of it is irreplaceable because FB killed off most of the competition. Compare it to Apple where you can just use Android and forget Apple exists at all.

blfr 4y ago
I use neither Facebook nor Apple. Let's hope Google doesn't ban my account since it has everything. Or perhaps we could have a regulatory regime that doesn't press every consumer into becoming an e-peasant of one of five mega corps.
- b112 4y ago
  I recall that scifi from the pre-2000s, had loads of scenarios with a "house computer". All personal stuff was stored there, even if it was net connnected and collated/performed searches for you. Maybe this will be the blowback reality. An applicance in every home, stored in a black box (fireproof, etc), which stores all your stuff. Computing at this level, email, notes, personal records, has the capacity to stabilize and change freeze. Which is good, if you want personal records to last 100 years. And looking at email, mbox formats have been static for decades. Static image formats too.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    There are some attempts: https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/ The problem is that it's not cheap to keep running, if you want it to integrate with the rest of the Net (i.e. also handle email and such).
  - justinclift 4y ago
    > Maybe this will be the blowback reality. Wonder how that'd play out for home ownership vs renting then. "Whose data is it?", etc. ;)
    - rambambram 4y ago
      Just like your couch in your rental apartment is yours, and just like your raincoat in the trunk of a rental car is yours. ;)
      - b112 4y ago
        I used to rent a place, furniture included, but everything smelled funny. Later in the year, during rainy season, I bought a used raincoat. It too smelled funny, and I soon discovered, by googling, that apparently people with a rubber fetish may do things to such garments. Horrible horrible things. Soon after, I became concerned about my smelly apartment. I started to google, but everything I googled with the word "fetish", returned unspeakable results. Each worse than the last! So I bought new furniture, bedding, cutlery(oh god!), plates, everything. Even toilet brushes are not safe from the horrors, so I bought one of those too. One night, I woke up in a start. An idea was in my head, and I rushed to google, and horribly found that factory workers making my stuff, have fetishes too. Nothing safe, I disposed of it all. I got out my chainsaw, and cut down a tree. I made plates, cutlery, even a wooden cup! And ate off of these plates and so on. However, just last week, I noticed a squirrel apparently randy and without a mate, doing something to a tree!! There is no end of the perversion I tell you, no end!!! So now I sit in the corner, drool upon my chin, eyes glassy and void of energy. (Brought to you by bbarnett's house, and the embarricon virus.)
  - sbarre 4y ago
    Hah you just reminded me of something... In the late 80s as a kid I remember reading a scifi short story from probably the 1950s that speculated that "in the future" the average suburban family would live inside their computer, as it would need to be the size of a house to perform all the support duties for a family.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  All three of you seem to have the same general problem, just the company name is different. No single account should gate access to _everything_ in your digital life. If getting banned from one company's platform would be a major problem for you, that probably means you should take steps to correct that now, no matter what the company is. If Facebook or Twitter banned me, it would have zero effect, because I don't ever use any of the services. If Apple banned me, it would be annoying, but I'm not heavily dependent on iCloud, so could switch to an Android phone pretty quickly. I certainly don't keep anything critical on iCloud or locked behind Apple services. If Google banned me, I'd lose an old gmail account I no longer use and I guess Google Voice, which I do use. Honestly losing Voice would probably be the most painful. I don't use any other Google service that requires a login so it wouldn't be a huge deal. We keep seeing these "XYZ banned me and I lost access to all my digital life" posts on HN, and they should be wake-up calls, yet people still think It Won't Happen To Me, and then we get another "ABC banned me..." article next week.
  - blfr 4y ago
    I have backups from Google Takeout, email in my own domain, and I use Linux on my laptop. I'm about as independent as you reasonably can but let's not pretend I could actually easily replace Google Photos, Maps, or Android. That grade of software simply doesn't currently exist outside of the big tech. More than that: Photos+Maps+Timeline combo doesn't even exist at Apple. Google is strictly far and the best choice for quite a few functionalities I cherish and a move to iCloud would be a downgrade. Not to mention the expense of buying new devices. I wouldn't really lose access to anything but my digital life would be greatly diminished.
  - sbf501 4y ago
    Yep. There needs to be a policy for data rights that is larger than the companies. Something government level.
alpaca128 4y ago
> you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all You have to choose among Google or Apple though, and both could just randomly ban you over night and make all your data inaccessible. If Google banned me I wouldn't be able to use my bank account without buying an iPhone/Mac or reinstalling Windows. And at this rate Windows will soon also be only usable with an account. This kind of limitation is bad and will cause a lot of unnecessary, expensive problems before regulations catch up.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  you are kind of forced to use somehow google backed products/services, but you are not forced to own and use a google account. Bank apps are accessible through the aurora store for example and many work well with microg instead of google play services.
  - b112 4y ago
    Installing a bank app seems like the ultimate horror story to me. The unholy tracking must be insane. You cannot just log in via a web browser? If so, why not?
    - prmoustache 4y ago
      Well in europe regulations have kind of forced 2FA (which is not bad in itself). At the beginning most banks were relying on sms but most of them are phasing it out. Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck. No idea about other continents but my MX girlfriend is locked out of her own MX bank account until she go there to sort this out because she do not have her original mx phone number anymore.
      - b112 4y ago
        Wait you need a smartphone to login?! How bizarre. Paypal has recently locked me out of my account, because I don't have a mobile phone number. Why would I? I have a landline phone, and, I have terrestrial high speed internet. So I have an Android tablet with wifi. It works at home, and worked when I used to goto office. I have voip too. However, there is no mobile service in my area. I'm very rural, so it's fine a few miles from my home, but not anywhere on my land. Paypal has my landline number, but recently insists I add a mobile phone for SMS auth. It is unclear to me how this could possibly help. Should I decide to spend cash on a mobile phone, just and only just for paypal, I'd have to try to login, drive a few kms to town, get the SMS code, then return. Surely, a timeout would happen by then. Not to mention the entire idea is absurd and smacks of ineptness on Paypal's part. Talking to paypal results in support personalle who literally do nothing but search a database and respond with circular, broken logic. I was even told repeatedly to login, to open a ticket, about not being able to login. And this was not just one support person either. Any push to speak to a supervisor results in a disconnect on transfer. I have been with paypal almost 20 years. It appears that will soon end. Bah.
Barrin92 4y ago
>I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network effect. there were quite a few stories about kids being ostracized from groups because they started to bully each other over lack of messaging features. Certainly not the worst thing imaginable but Apple's apps do have network effects. https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/10/22876067/google-apple-ios-android-imessages-bullying-lockheimer https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/10/22876067/google-apple-ios...
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  I was bullied at school for not having Nike shoes; I remember one kid literally telling me "I can't be friends with you until you have Nikes". I love kids; I used to work with kids and I kinda miss it, but man kids can be petty assholes.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Sadly the solution isn't banning Nikes or whatever the current "they're being petty about it" thing is - they'll just find something else to latch onto.
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      That was my point indeed. Although thinking about it again, in some countries (not mine) they got school uniforms for this reason. I don't know if it helps (as in, there will still be bullying no doubt, but is there less bullying without than with school uniforms?)
      - bombcar 4y ago
        I suspect if there are variations on "amount of bullying" it comes down to culture rather than "school uniforms" - at least one Japanese manga is all about bullying in a school uniformed school, so it must happen enough to be a bit of a trope. It may happen less in places where the private schools can be school uniform or not, but there I suspect it has more to do with expelling the bullies than anything to do with the uniform itself, since it won't usually cover other status symbols that can be obtained (shoes, hair decorations, etc). That's not to discount that the uniform may be useful for various reasons.
dmz73 4y ago
- throw457 4y ago
  - dang 4y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
alexb_ 4y ago
>On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all Green bubble exclusion absolutely, 100% is a real thing.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  iMessage doesn't actually require an account. You can be banned from iCloud and still use iMessage.
  - alexb_ 4y ago
    but iMessage requires you to use an iPhone...
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      Which you can buy for cash if necessary. There's no way to ban you from buying an iPhone.
      - alexb_ 4y ago
        I think you missed the topic of this thread.
      - Miraste 4y ago
        What are you going to do with an iPhone without an Apple account? Use it as a coffee coaster?
        Nextgrid 4y ago
        The only important functionality that requires an Apple account is the App Store. For that you can create an account with no/limited identifying information and pay for it via iTunes gift cards if necessary. A ban is trivial to circumvent.
- shmel 4y ago
  I've heard about it, but never experienced IRL. Is it really a big deal?
turndown 4y ago
You could make the exact same arguments about FB being irrelevant, the difference is that your social group doesn't revolve around iMessage group chats and twitter, they revolve around facebook and Facebook Messenger. Using an android over an iPhone basically locks you out of most group chats because Apple refuses to be normal human beings and develop an open API - So please tell me again how I can ignore Apple when it's actually Facebook you can safely ignore? Note that I am a long-term android user.
- corrral 4y ago
  FB is where basically all local social interaction takes place. Restaurants, schools(!), neighborhoods/HOAs, local governments, kids' sports stuff, et c., all treat it as their main platform for communication. These may (may) provide info through other outlets, but they're usually neglected, outdated, and incomplete—you are expected to use Facebook. I don't even have an account with them, but I have to visit the site all the time. If my wife didn't have an account, I'd have to get one, for the times when it's needed. FB is the Internet, as far as local real-world stuff goes.
arbirk 4y ago
Exactly. I have a Quest - I guess I could have choosen not to buy it - but I can't not have a fb account because a lot of important events only run through there.
bogwog 4y ago
> On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network effect. This doesn't change the reality that Apple has too much power. Just because it's possible to not use Apple doesn't mean we should ignore that one company has nearly complete and unchecked control over the digital lives of more than half of the US population, as well as a massive chunk of the tech industry as a whole.
usrn 4y ago
I live entirely without a smartphone and centralized social media (unless you count my Pinephone but that's really a small laptop and small forums of which HN is probably the largest.) I recommend this to everyone but even I recognize it's not really a casual decision for most people anymore. I was extremely careful to not let Google/Apple manage much of the things in my life and I still felt pain leaving them behind. Most people are not at all careful and probably don't even know what they would do without the services from these two companies.

by shmel 4y ago

blfr 4y ago

I use neither Facebook nor Apple. Let's hope Google doesn't ban my account since it has everything. Or perhaps we could have a regulatory regime that doesn't press every consumer into becoming an e-peasant of one of five mega corps.

b112 4y ago
I recall that scifi from the pre-2000s, had loads of scenarios with a "house computer". All personal stuff was stored there, even if it was net connnected and collated/performed searches for you. Maybe this will be the blowback reality. An applicance in every home, stored in a black box (fireproof, etc), which stores all your stuff. Computing at this level, email, notes, personal records, has the capacity to stabilize and change freeze. Which is good, if you want personal records to last 100 years. And looking at email, mbox formats have been static for decades. Static image formats too.
- int_19h 4y ago
  There are some attempts: https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/ The problem is that it's not cheap to keep running, if you want it to integrate with the rest of the Net (i.e. also handle email and such).
- justinclift 4y ago
  > Maybe this will be the blowback reality. Wonder how that'd play out for home ownership vs renting then. "Whose data is it?", etc. ;)
  - rambambram 4y ago
    Just like your couch in your rental apartment is yours, and just like your raincoat in the trunk of a rental car is yours. ;)
    - b112 4y ago
      I used to rent a place, furniture included, but everything smelled funny. Later in the year, during rainy season, I bought a used raincoat. It too smelled funny, and I soon discovered, by googling, that apparently people with a rubber fetish may do things to such garments. Horrible horrible things. Soon after, I became concerned about my smelly apartment. I started to google, but everything I googled with the word "fetish", returned unspeakable results. Each worse than the last! So I bought new furniture, bedding, cutlery(oh god!), plates, everything. Even toilet brushes are not safe from the horrors, so I bought one of those too. One night, I woke up in a start. An idea was in my head, and I rushed to google, and horribly found that factory workers making my stuff, have fetishes too. Nothing safe, I disposed of it all. I got out my chainsaw, and cut down a tree. I made plates, cutlery, even a wooden cup! And ate off of these plates and so on. However, just last week, I noticed a squirrel apparently randy and without a mate, doing something to a tree!! There is no end of the perversion I tell you, no end!!! So now I sit in the corner, drool upon my chin, eyes glassy and void of energy. (Brought to you by bbarnett's house, and the embarricon virus.)
- sbarre 4y ago
  Hah you just reminded me of something... In the late 80s as a kid I remember reading a scifi short story from probably the 1950s that speculated that "in the future" the average suburban family would live inside their computer, as it would need to be the size of a house to perform all the support duties for a family.
ryandrake 4y ago
All three of you seem to have the same general problem, just the company name is different. No single account should gate access to _everything_ in your digital life. If getting banned from one company's platform would be a major problem for you, that probably means you should take steps to correct that now, no matter what the company is. If Facebook or Twitter banned me, it would have zero effect, because I don't ever use any of the services. If Apple banned me, it would be annoying, but I'm not heavily dependent on iCloud, so could switch to an Android phone pretty quickly. I certainly don't keep anything critical on iCloud or locked behind Apple services. If Google banned me, I'd lose an old gmail account I no longer use and I guess Google Voice, which I do use. Honestly losing Voice would probably be the most painful. I don't use any other Google service that requires a login so it wouldn't be a huge deal. We keep seeing these "XYZ banned me and I lost access to all my digital life" posts on HN, and they should be wake-up calls, yet people still think It Won't Happen To Me, and then we get another "ABC banned me..." article next week.
- blfr 4y ago
  I have backups from Google Takeout, email in my own domain, and I use Linux on my laptop. I'm about as independent as you reasonably can but let's not pretend I could actually easily replace Google Photos, Maps, or Android. That grade of software simply doesn't currently exist outside of the big tech. More than that: Photos+Maps+Timeline combo doesn't even exist at Apple. Google is strictly far and the best choice for quite a few functionalities I cherish and a move to iCloud would be a downgrade. Not to mention the expense of buying new devices. I wouldn't really lose access to anything but my digital life would be greatly diminished.
- sbf501 4y ago
  Yep. There needs to be a policy for data rights that is larger than the companies. Something government level.

alpaca128 4y ago

> you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all You have to choose among Google or Apple though, and both could just randomly ban you over night and make all your data inaccessible. If Google banned me I wouldn't be able to use my bank account without buying an iPhone/Mac or reinstalling Windows. And at this rate Windows will soon also be only usable with an account. This kind of limitation is bad and will cause a lot of unnecessary, expensive problems before regulations catch up.

prmoustache 4y ago
you are kind of forced to use somehow google backed products/services, but you are not forced to own and use a google account. Bank apps are accessible through the aurora store for example and many work well with microg instead of google play services.
- b112 4y ago
  Installing a bank app seems like the ultimate horror story to me. The unholy tracking must be insane. You cannot just log in via a web browser? If so, why not?
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    Well in europe regulations have kind of forced 2FA (which is not bad in itself). At the beginning most banks were relying on sms but most of them are phasing it out. Problem is instead of choosing a TOTP which would have been compatible with any OS/device they favor their own proprietary app with a push based solution. This suck. No idea about other continents but my MX girlfriend is locked out of her own MX bank account until she go there to sort this out because she do not have her original mx phone number anymore.
    - b112 4y ago
      Wait you need a smartphone to login?! How bizarre. Paypal has recently locked me out of my account, because I don't have a mobile phone number. Why would I? I have a landline phone, and, I have terrestrial high speed internet. So I have an Android tablet with wifi. It works at home, and worked when I used to goto office. I have voip too. However, there is no mobile service in my area. I'm very rural, so it's fine a few miles from my home, but not anywhere on my land. Paypal has my landline number, but recently insists I add a mobile phone for SMS auth. It is unclear to me how this could possibly help. Should I decide to spend cash on a mobile phone, just and only just for paypal, I'd have to try to login, drive a few kms to town, get the SMS code, then return. Surely, a timeout would happen by then. Not to mention the entire idea is absurd and smacks of ineptness on Paypal's part. Talking to paypal results in support personalle who literally do nothing but search a database and respond with circular, broken logic. I was even told repeatedly to login, to open a ticket, about not being able to login. And this was not just one support person either. Any push to speak to a supervisor results in a disconnect on transfer. I have been with paypal almost 20 years. It appears that will soon end. Bah.

Barrin92 4y ago

>I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network effect. there were quite a few stories about kids being ostracized from groups because they started to bully each other over lack of messaging features. Certainly not the worst thing imaginable but Apple's apps do have network effects. https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/10/22876067/google-apple-ios-android-imessages-bullying-lockheimer https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/10/22876067/google-apple-ios...

Beltalowda 4y ago
I was bullied at school for not having Nike shoes; I remember one kid literally telling me "I can't be friends with you until you have Nikes". I love kids; I used to work with kids and I kinda miss it, but man kids can be petty assholes.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Sadly the solution isn't banning Nikes or whatever the current "they're being petty about it" thing is - they'll just find something else to latch onto.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    That was my point indeed. Although thinking about it again, in some countries (not mine) they got school uniforms for this reason. I don't know if it helps (as in, there will still be bullying no doubt, but is there less bullying without than with school uniforms?)
    - bombcar 4y ago
      I suspect if there are variations on "amount of bullying" it comes down to culture rather than "school uniforms" - at least one Japanese manga is all about bullying in a school uniformed school, so it must happen enough to be a bit of a trope. It may happen less in places where the private schools can be school uniform or not, but there I suspect it has more to do with expelling the bullies than anything to do with the uniform itself, since it won't usually cover other status symbols that can be obtained (shoes, hair decorations, etc). That's not to discount that the uniform may be useful for various reasons.

dmz73 4y ago

throw457 4y ago
- dang 4y ago
  We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

alexb_ 4y ago

>On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all Green bubble exclusion absolutely, 100% is a real thing.

Nextgrid 4y ago
iMessage doesn't actually require an account. You can be banned from iCloud and still use iMessage.
- alexb_ 4y ago
  but iMessage requires you to use an iPhone...
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    Which you can buy for cash if necessary. There's no way to ban you from buying an iPhone.
    - alexb_ 4y ago
      I think you missed the topic of this thread.
    - Miraste 4y ago
      What are you going to do with an iPhone without an Apple account? Use it as a coffee coaster?
      - Nextgrid 4y ago
        The only important functionality that requires an Apple account is the App Store. For that you can create an account with no/limited identifying information and pay for it via iTunes gift cards if necessary. A ban is trivial to circumvent.
shmel 4y ago
I've heard about it, but never experienced IRL. Is it really a big deal?

turndown 4y ago

You could make the exact same arguments about FB being irrelevant, the difference is that your social group doesn't revolve around iMessage group chats and twitter, they revolve around facebook and Facebook Messenger. Using an android over an iPhone basically locks you out of most group chats because Apple refuses to be normal human beings and develop an open API - So please tell me again how I can ignore Apple when it's actually Facebook you can safely ignore? Note that I am a long-term android user.

corrral 4y ago
FB is where basically all local social interaction takes place. Restaurants, schools(!), neighborhoods/HOAs, local governments, kids' sports stuff, et c., all treat it as their main platform for communication. These may (may) provide info through other outlets, but they're usually neglected, outdated, and incomplete—you are expected to use Facebook. I don't even have an account with them, but I have to visit the site all the time. If my wife didn't have an account, I'd have to get one, for the times when it's needed. FB is the Internet, as far as local real-world stuff goes.

arbirk 4y ago

Exactly. I have a Quest - I guess I could have choosen not to buy it - but I can't not have a fb account because a lot of important events only run through there.

bogwog 4y ago

> On the other hand, you can choose to not use Apple and your life won't be affected at all. I don't use Apple at all and don't feel I missing out. Apple doesn't have any network effect. This doesn't change the reality that Apple has too much power. Just because it's possible to not use Apple doesn't mean we should ignore that one company has nearly complete and unchecked control over the digital lives of more than half of the US population, as well as a massive chunk of the tech industry as a whole.

usrn 4y ago

I live entirely without a smartphone and centralized social media (unless you count my Pinephone but that's really a small laptop and small forums of which HN is probably the largest.) I recommend this to everyone but even I recognize it's not really a casual decision for most people anymore. I was extremely careful to not let Google/Apple manage much of the things in my life and I still felt pain leaving them behind. Most people are not at all careful and probably don't even know what they would do without the services from these two companies.