8 ms·

> [...] without actually realising that it is actually going to make things worse, that's what regulation does in most cases. Feels like a uniquely american ta

by dijit 4y ago

> [...] without actually realising that it is actually going to make things worse, that's what regulation does in most cases. Feels like a uniquely american take. Companies that are maliciously compliant are not the norm. Leaving behind that most is an ambiguous enough term that means you could basically discredit anything I come up with, how do you feel about regulations that limit the use of harmful or toxic chemicals? What about regulations that disallow predatory gambling, or the sale of products that do not meet their claims? Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. If you think the regulations are bad then you should genuinely consider sending updated versions to your representatives.

tekknik 4y ago
Except in this case there are no lives being saved, it’s turning green bubbles blue. That’s all this regulation is really about.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- JoeNr76 4y ago
  Not just that, it's removing barriers for competition. Which is what good regulations is all about. (and, technically it more than just bubble color, it's also including everyone in group chats)
  - hwbehrens 4y ago
    I think what the (grand)parent would argue is that this isn't removing barriers to competition, it's removing competition itself. That is, iMessage is a feature provided by Apple that makes their products more compelling as compared to their competitors. By requiring Apple to provide this feature to their competitors, they lose one of the key differentiators that make their products "better" than their competitors. > [...] want to implement something "different" [...] The slippery-slope argument we're seeing here is that eventually, regulations would require all products and services to be exactly the same for inter-compatibility, which in turn induces a cooling effect on any innovation or novel developments (at least for existing product verticals under regulatory capture).
    - JoeNr76 4y ago
      In the case of iMessage, Apple has a competitive advantage that stifles competition, not enhances it. Setting a baseline for interoperability is not the same as requiring them all to be the same.
      - hellojesus 4y ago
        People vote with their dollars. If people don't like the dumb messaging, they can move to a different platform. With infinite amounts of other free apps, why are regulations necessary? Let people decide for themselves.
        ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        So people who have no dollars get no vote and deserve nothing? Should we take the same approach with clean air and see what happens?
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > people who have no dollars get no vote and deserve nothing? On how messaging works on thousand-dollar phones? Yes.
        ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        Nice If your were in charge when the telephone network was designed, poor people would not even be able to make a phonecall to their middleclass neighbour or senator, they'd have to buy a special Rich People phone
        jaywalk 4y ago
        Your hypothetical would make sense if iPhones didn't support regular phone calls, SMS, and every other messaging app out there. All people without iPhones can't do is send blue bubble messages to iPhone users. That's literally it.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  The regulation was originally an antitrust case leveled against Apple by the European Commission. It contained many things that are unrelated to saving human lives, but will make developers and users lives better in the long run. We do this because the status quo (Apple having unfettered control over their ecosystem) hasn't worked out for people outside of the ecosystem. In lieu of trusting the world's largest company to build a text-messaging replacement that works on other phones, we do have to drop the life-saving legislation to focus on nannying the next iPhone.
  - salad-tycoon 4y ago
    Some in the United States would be grateful that a large multinational regulatory agency would focus on an issue whereupon green bubble people identify as blue bubble people versus matters of more import. They would call this a win. Not arguing against your comment. Just adding a viewpoint that some have. I.e Big government should spend more time on these kind of things instead of “life saving” things.
  - sbuk 4y ago
    Developers lives, not necessarily users. It was also a huge waste of time and money for all parties as it achieves nothing - Facebook are the market leader with WhatsApp both globally an in Europe - iMessage barely registers in the top 5.
    - jorams 4y ago
      The law isn't specific to Apple, it also affects WhatsApp. Indeed in the EU that's probably much more important. Personally I don't know anybody who consciously uses iMessage, but the extreme network effects of WhatsApp make it socially impossible to move away from.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Why wouldn't it improve? Currently none of these services offer interop; in the future they might. That's a static upgrade to me, and I'd imagine most other people too.
- dlivingston 4y ago
  That's a bit reductionist. Encryption, variable-sized payload attachments, reactions, dynamic group membership are some potential featurs. And - critically - integration with systems NOT tied to outdated mobile cell infrastructure (you need to procure a phone number and special systems to send an SMS). Apple is the last real holdout here, keeping SMS and MMS alive.
- Telemakhos 4y ago
  Is it really only about bubble color, or also about encryption? Apple goes to great lengths to secure those blue bubbles, even as group texts. Green bubbles are not secure, and Google is pushing an interoperability standard that does not secure group chats because Google likes reading your comms for its advertising business.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I don’t think we need to identify Google’s motives as malicious. Google has been trying to get people to use its own messaging apps, but Google missed the boat, bungled the user experience, and kept confusing people with new apps. Google would probably love it if Android shipped with a Google-branded, end-to-end encrypted messaging app that people liked to use. I think that there is a combination of internal Google problems and problems in Google’s relationships with Android vendors that makes this difficult. And then, any such app would be probably be in, what, 6th place at this point? Meanwhile, Meta has apps #1 and #2.
    - dpratt 4y ago
      > I don’t think we need to identify Google’s motives as malicious I would argue that the evidence over the past several years has shown that the default position w.r.t. to Google's motivations should not default to 'benign' under any circumstance. With all other things being equal, and without evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to operate under the assumption that Google will enthusiastically and universally do everything they can to violate your privacy in any manner available to them, no matter how subtle.
      - klodolph 4y ago
        > I would argue that the evidence over the past several years has shown that the default position w.r.t. to Google's motivations should not default to 'benign' under any circumstance. “Not benign” and “not malicious” can both be true. Google is motivated by self-interest, is staffed by engineers which have various conflicting self-interest and ideologies, and has a culture with various competencies and dysfunctions. Sometimes Google will do things that benefit consumers and sometimes Google will do things that harm consumers, but it’s not out of altruism nor is it out of malice. Same as other large companies.
mattrighetti 4y ago
> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. The fallacy here is that you don't get to decide what "social good" is, especially in this case. People get to choose what is good for them, we're talking about tech products here. I see regulations in this specific case as something that goes against progress, whatever that means for the company of your favorite messaging app for the reasons I've explained above. What about startups that will have to think about this one more thing and maybe put in twice the work when they want to validate their new product? We're probably leaving out about thousands of other cases here, that's why I made the argument that it sounds nice but it's actually making things worse from my point of view.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dijit 4y ago
  > [..] you don't get to decide what "social good" is Well, technically I have a say, I elect my leaders and can write to them with my opinion. Often it is the case that salesmen and charletons get into those positions but the basic premise of those positions is that they're intended to act in the social good. What you propose is that somehow tech companies will act in the social good by themselves, which I find particularly dubious. All capitalist companies (and by that I mean, any company that is enjoying success in a capitalist society) have an often unstated goal of monopolising their market. It is a natural outcome of competition that eventually there is a victor. The whole premise of capitalism is that competition is good, but eventually the strongest will win and you have a monopolistic leader. The only antidote to this is regulations. Making the argument that regulation hurts smaller companies is also something uniquely American. This regulation (and many other tech regulations) are really aimed at people abusing their position today, not some theoretical startup that somehow captures 60% of a market overnight. FWIW, I actually really like iMessage and agree with the decision Apple made not to open it, but I can't abide talk like this because a lot of people seem to think that regulation is somehow anti-capitalist, when in reality regulation is the only thing that could keep the capitalist machine running once there is a monopoly position or a sufficient moat around a service.
weberer 4y ago
>Companies that are maliciously compliant are not the norm. How do you explain all these damn GDPR pop ups on every site that make it as difficult as possible to disagree?
- wildpeaks 4y ago
  On that note, I think the GDPR banner problem won't be solved until the UI is shown at the browser level, just like tracking permission dialogs on mobile: having the same UI for all sites would prevent tricking users into over-complicated form because at least it would be the same form everytime. Right now, too many end users get fatigue fooled into blaming the EU rather than the companies tracking them, whereas on mobile they are aware that it's Facebook triggering the dialog, not the EU: just see how many users end up refusing Facebook tracking when they have a clear choice that doesn't push them one way or the other. It would even help companies who currently delegate handling GDRP to thirdparty services that prey on small companies worried about being non-compliant.
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    My understanding of GDPR, et. al. is that you don't need consent to use cookies. You need consent to use tracking cookies, third party cookies, and any cookie that isn't essential to the use of the app. So for me, that reads as anytime I am asked about consent, it is an admission that the site is using my data/adding cookies in a way that is unnecessary and invasive. Automatically decline!
    - dijit 4y ago
      According to my Lawyers in Switzerland, this is the correct interpretation. I'm working at removing google analytics from my product site specifically because it means I don't need a cookie consent popup any longer, despite supporting log in (which will set an actually essential, non-third-party cookie).
  - surge 4y ago
    That's what I was thinking, just have it as a presetting in my browser to reject all but necessary functional cookies as a header setting in requests and be done.
influx 4y ago
Respectfully, Americans can have this take because we created an environment where these companies could flourish. There is no European messaging standard for us to regulate because no European business could get to that point at all.
- bilekas 4y ago
  > Respectfully, Americans can have this take because we created an environment where these companies could flourish Flourish is a generous term.. There are countless examples of companies in all industries who will take full advantage of no regulations in the pursuit of profits solely. And only when it's too late and they have caused so much chaos for people will they lobby for their own "symbolic" regulations. There is a happy medium in there somewhere, but the US model is not it.
- dijit 4y ago
  Respectfully, its mostly because anything that is successful in Europe is immediately purchased by the big US tech giants. Mojang and Skype come to mind. As well as three of my former companies that are now owned by Oracle. The EU market is definitely harder, it is not as contiguous and large as the US one, even the smallest required task: localisation, is hugely expensive. So you can hit a critical scale faster in the US, sure, but any time anyone actually conquers Europe all that awaits them is acquisition.
- h1fra 4y ago
  USA is a country with one language, one economy and 330 millions people. When you create a company there you automatically unlock a bigger market than EU, the comparison is not fair. Also, anecdotally, SMS was invented in europe so no need to regulate something already open and european.
- krzyk 4y ago
  Signal, Telegram, oh and you know - SMS. Also - GSM.
__MatrixMan__ 4y ago
> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. Regulations are the best tool for that. But there's always sabotage as a fallback.
mclightning 4y ago
I am really glad to come across this comment. As another european, I am shocked at the reaction to this regulation. But then again, HN is mostly an american community.

by dijit 4y ago

tekknik 4y ago

Except in this case there are no lives being saved, it’s turning green bubbles blue. That’s all this regulation is really about.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
JoeNr76 4y ago
Not just that, it's removing barriers for competition. Which is what good regulations is all about. (and, technically it more than just bubble color, it's also including everyone in group chats)
- hwbehrens 4y ago
  I think what the (grand)parent would argue is that this isn't removing barriers to competition, it's removing competition itself. That is, iMessage is a feature provided by Apple that makes their products more compelling as compared to their competitors. By requiring Apple to provide this feature to their competitors, they lose one of the key differentiators that make their products "better" than their competitors. > [...] want to implement something "different" [...] The slippery-slope argument we're seeing here is that eventually, regulations would require all products and services to be exactly the same for inter-compatibility, which in turn induces a cooling effect on any innovation or novel developments (at least for existing product verticals under regulatory capture).
  - JoeNr76 4y ago
    In the case of iMessage, Apple has a competitive advantage that stifles competition, not enhances it. Setting a baseline for interoperability is not the same as requiring them all to be the same.
    - hellojesus 4y ago
      People vote with their dollars. If people don't like the dumb messaging, they can move to a different platform. With infinite amounts of other free apps, why are regulations necessary? Let people decide for themselves.
      - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        So people who have no dollars get no vote and deserve nothing? Should we take the same approach with clean air and see what happens?
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > people who have no dollars get no vote and deserve nothing? On how messaging works on thousand-dollar phones? Yes.
        ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        Nice If your were in charge when the telephone network was designed, poor people would not even be able to make a phonecall to their middleclass neighbour or senator, they'd have to buy a special Rich People phone
        jaywalk 4y ago
        Your hypothetical would make sense if iPhones didn't support regular phone calls, SMS, and every other messaging app out there. All people without iPhones can't do is send blue bubble messages to iPhone users. That's literally it.
smoldesu 4y ago
The regulation was originally an antitrust case leveled against Apple by the European Commission. It contained many things that are unrelated to saving human lives, but will make developers and users lives better in the long run. We do this because the status quo (Apple having unfettered control over their ecosystem) hasn't worked out for people outside of the ecosystem. In lieu of trusting the world's largest company to build a text-messaging replacement that works on other phones, we do have to drop the life-saving legislation to focus on nannying the next iPhone.
- salad-tycoon 4y ago
  Some in the United States would be grateful that a large multinational regulatory agency would focus on an issue whereupon green bubble people identify as blue bubble people versus matters of more import. They would call this a win. Not arguing against your comment. Just adding a viewpoint that some have. I.e Big government should spend more time on these kind of things instead of “life saving” things.
- sbuk 4y ago
  Developers lives, not necessarily users. It was also a huge waste of time and money for all parties as it achieves nothing - Facebook are the market leader with WhatsApp both globally an in Europe - iMessage barely registers in the top 5.
  - jorams 4y ago
    The law isn't specific to Apple, it also affects WhatsApp. Indeed in the EU that's probably much more important. Personally I don't know anybody who consciously uses iMessage, but the extreme network effects of WhatsApp make it socially impossible to move away from.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Why wouldn't it improve? Currently none of these services offer interop; in the future they might. That's a static upgrade to me, and I'd imagine most other people too.
dlivingston 4y ago
That's a bit reductionist. Encryption, variable-sized payload attachments, reactions, dynamic group membership are some potential featurs. And - critically - integration with systems NOT tied to outdated mobile cell infrastructure (you need to procure a phone number and special systems to send an SMS). Apple is the last real holdout here, keeping SMS and MMS alive.
Telemakhos 4y ago
Is it really only about bubble color, or also about encryption? Apple goes to great lengths to secure those blue bubbles, even as group texts. Green bubbles are not secure, and Google is pushing an interoperability standard that does not secure group chats because Google likes reading your comms for its advertising business.
- klodolph 4y ago
  I don’t think we need to identify Google’s motives as malicious. Google has been trying to get people to use its own messaging apps, but Google missed the boat, bungled the user experience, and kept confusing people with new apps. Google would probably love it if Android shipped with a Google-branded, end-to-end encrypted messaging app that people liked to use. I think that there is a combination of internal Google problems and problems in Google’s relationships with Android vendors that makes this difficult. And then, any such app would be probably be in, what, 6th place at this point? Meanwhile, Meta has apps #1 and #2.
  - dpratt 4y ago
    > I don’t think we need to identify Google’s motives as malicious I would argue that the evidence over the past several years has shown that the default position w.r.t. to Google's motivations should not default to 'benign' under any circumstance. With all other things being equal, and without evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to operate under the assumption that Google will enthusiastically and universally do everything they can to violate your privacy in any manner available to them, no matter how subtle.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      > I would argue that the evidence over the past several years has shown that the default position w.r.t. to Google's motivations should not default to 'benign' under any circumstance. “Not benign” and “not malicious” can both be true. Google is motivated by self-interest, is staffed by engineers which have various conflicting self-interest and ideologies, and has a culture with various competencies and dysfunctions. Sometimes Google will do things that benefit consumers and sometimes Google will do things that harm consumers, but it’s not out of altruism nor is it out of malice. Same as other large companies.

mattrighetti 4y ago

> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. The fallacy here is that you don't get to decide what "social good" is, especially in this case. People get to choose what is good for them, we're talking about tech products here. I see regulations in this specific case as something that goes against progress, whatever that means for the company of your favorite messaging app for the reasons I've explained above. What about startups that will have to think about this one more thing and maybe put in twice the work when they want to validate their new product? We're probably leaving out about thousands of other cases here, that's why I made the argument that it sounds nice but it's actually making things worse from my point of view.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dijit 4y ago
> [..] you don't get to decide what "social good" is Well, technically I have a say, I elect my leaders and can write to them with my opinion. Often it is the case that salesmen and charletons get into those positions but the basic premise of those positions is that they're intended to act in the social good. What you propose is that somehow tech companies will act in the social good by themselves, which I find particularly dubious. All capitalist companies (and by that I mean, any company that is enjoying success in a capitalist society) have an often unstated goal of monopolising their market. It is a natural outcome of competition that eventually there is a victor. The whole premise of capitalism is that competition is good, but eventually the strongest will win and you have a monopolistic leader. The only antidote to this is regulations. Making the argument that regulation hurts smaller companies is also something uniquely American. This regulation (and many other tech regulations) are really aimed at people abusing their position today, not some theoretical startup that somehow captures 60% of a market overnight. FWIW, I actually really like iMessage and agree with the decision Apple made not to open it, but I can't abide talk like this because a lot of people seem to think that regulation is somehow anti-capitalist, when in reality regulation is the only thing that could keep the capitalist machine running once there is a monopoly position or a sufficient moat around a service.

weberer 4y ago

>Companies that are maliciously compliant are not the norm. How do you explain all these damn GDPR pop ups on every site that make it as difficult as possible to disagree?

wildpeaks 4y ago
On that note, I think the GDPR banner problem won't be solved until the UI is shown at the browser level, just like tracking permission dialogs on mobile: having the same UI for all sites would prevent tricking users into over-complicated form because at least it would be the same form everytime. Right now, too many end users get fatigue fooled into blaming the EU rather than the companies tracking them, whereas on mobile they are aware that it's Facebook triggering the dialog, not the EU: just see how many users end up refusing Facebook tracking when they have a clear choice that doesn't push them one way or the other. It would even help companies who currently delegate handling GDRP to thirdparty services that prey on small companies worried about being non-compliant.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  My understanding of GDPR, et. al. is that you don't need consent to use cookies. You need consent to use tracking cookies, third party cookies, and any cookie that isn't essential to the use of the app. So for me, that reads as anytime I am asked about consent, it is an admission that the site is using my data/adding cookies in a way that is unnecessary and invasive. Automatically decline!
  - dijit 4y ago
    According to my Lawyers in Switzerland, this is the correct interpretation. I'm working at removing google analytics from my product site specifically because it means I don't need a cookie consent popup any longer, despite supporting log in (which will set an actually essential, non-third-party cookie).
- surge 4y ago
  That's what I was thinking, just have it as a presetting in my browser to reject all but necessary functional cookies as a header setting in requests and be done.

influx 4y ago

Respectfully, Americans can have this take because we created an environment where these companies could flourish. There is no European messaging standard for us to regulate because no European business could get to that point at all.

bilekas 4y ago
> Respectfully, Americans can have this take because we created an environment where these companies could flourish Flourish is a generous term.. There are countless examples of companies in all industries who will take full advantage of no regulations in the pursuit of profits solely. And only when it's too late and they have caused so much chaos for people will they lobby for their own "symbolic" regulations. There is a happy medium in there somewhere, but the US model is not it.
dijit 4y ago
Respectfully, its mostly because anything that is successful in Europe is immediately purchased by the big US tech giants. Mojang and Skype come to mind. As well as three of my former companies that are now owned by Oracle. The EU market is definitely harder, it is not as contiguous and large as the US one, even the smallest required task: localisation, is hugely expensive. So you can hit a critical scale faster in the US, sure, but any time anyone actually conquers Europe all that awaits them is acquisition.
h1fra 4y ago
USA is a country with one language, one economy and 330 millions people. When you create a company there you automatically unlock a bigger market than EU, the comparison is not fair. Also, anecdotally, SMS was invented in europe so no need to regulate something already open and european.
krzyk 4y ago
Signal, Telegram, oh and you know - SMS. Also - GSM.

__MatrixMan__ 4y ago

> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. Regulations are the best tool for that. But there's always sabotage as a fallback.

mclightning 4y ago

I am really glad to come across this comment. As another european, I am shocked at the reaction to this regulation. But then again, HN is mostly an american community.