4 ms·

Yep. It really feels like a bunch of kids read up on ‘90s Microsoft, internalised a third-hand wildly simplified definition of ‘antitrust’, and used it to add a

Yep. It really feels like a bunch of kids read up on ‘90s Microsoft, internalised a third-hand wildly simplified definition of ‘antitrust’, and used it to add a moral high-ground angle to what is essentially an iOS power user feature request. It’s often the first step in a whole lot of doublespeak. “This will set everybody free”, but at the same time, “this doesn’t present a security issue because nobody will use it”. To be clear, I think that the government should storm Apple Park with buns glazing and force them to do a more reasonable degree of rent-seeking. I’m not going to pretend that this is for any reason other than “I think that 30% is a dick move”. You don’t just get to pretend that Android doesn’t exist, or that the vast majority of ways that people communicate aren’t cross-platform, or that IOS has any material network effect whatsoever. So you really end up with two camps, one camp who always stop short of saying “iOS is just better in my eyes, and I want to be able to do more with my phone.” And the other camp is…let’s be honest…Android users. And the mere fact that there’s so many people in this camp I think directly contradicts any assertion that there’s a monopoly in the first place.

fsckboy 3y ago
you're not exactly agreeing with GP, you are going overboard, the court said these types of cases are covered by antitrust, but that Epic had failed to make its case. (like, murder is still illegal even if a particular case is not made) But it said ... that Epic, regardless, had “failed to establish, as a factual matter, its proposed market definition and the existence of any substantially less restrictive alternative means for Apple to accomplish the procompetitive justifications supporting iOS’s walled-garden ecosystem.” In other words, while these types of contracts can be within the scope of a Sherman Act claim, that wasn’t relevant to the court’s decision in this case.
dgoldstein0 3y ago
"buns glazing" Lol typo or intentional?
- techdragon 3y ago
  I love how autocorrect mistakes sometimes just come out sounding like rhyming slang… a less obtuse version than most real dialects of rhyming slang, more understandable by most people.
  - jay_kyburz 3y ago
    There was an AI thread a few days ago about how Open AI could not come up with a catchy slogan for selling hot cross buns in the UK. Could be a reference to the thread, or the actual slogan used in the UK.
    - techdragon 3y ago
      It’s an interesting shortcoming of the large language models that they struggle to “play” with the rules of the language very much. I’ve tried to get GPT 3, 3.5, and 4 to generate business names and other names for things and it’s not particularly good at it. It frequently “runs out of creativity, and starts to repeat the same combination of basing building blocks. The worst example I came up with had moderately specific business names with a particular theme like an “1890s” or “1970s” or “late 1990s computer startup” style of name.. it would frequently run out and start repeating the same building blocks in under 50 examples, the absolute worst started repeating itself at about item 20 and the list gets increasingly repetitive from that point. I built a modified name generator based on some existing open source code that’s been around for several years now based on GPT2 and sure I couldn’t ask to go give me something with a specific theme… but damn it was way more creative at generating new words that could be names and it was t hard to filter the output to be useful since I could get it locally in batches of thousands overnight.
      - int_19h 3y ago
        On the contrary, I find that GPT - especially GPT-4 - is very good at playing with the rules of the language: https://gist.github.com/int19h/6fa34a86923cd681396393b21b9abce7 https://gist.github.com/int19h/6fa34a86923cd681396393b21b9ab...
- a_e_k 3y ago
  I'm guessing intentional spoonerism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism
ddingus 3y ago
I agree with you in that there is no Apple monopoly. What people are seeing may be something monopoly like because Apple is able to attract an affluent user base and then keep most of it over very long periods of time. In some ways, from Apple's point of view, Android does not exist! Android is not the same thing Apple is, and most computer manufacturers are not doing what Apple is doing with the Mac either. Sure, a computer is a computer and a phone is a phone, but Apple has a far greater control over it's product than it's competition does, except perhaps Google. Apple likes to sell products to people who will value them in the same way Apple does. A big part of that is Apple makes awful nice stuff! And unlike many other manufacturers, Apple asks for some money on every last bit of that value and Apple gets that money because it is all real value. I'm typing this on an M1 Air that I got for a song. It's a sweet machine! I said the same thing about the last Mac I owned and used regularly too. Got that one for a song as well. From Apple's point of view, I might as well not exist! I only value some of the things Apple does and that means I'm unwilling to pay what Apple asks for it's products, despite being a fan of said products. We get along just fine too. I'm not paying what Apple wants and I almost never use the app store either. I have the software running on the machine that I want to run, and I can write the programs I want to write, use the peripherals I want to use enjoy media I want to enjoy, on the machine I want to enjoy them on. No worries. Unlike many who disagree with Apple on value, I strongly support what Apple does and how they do it. It doesn't impact me one bit, or if it does and let's be real --it probably does, then I don't really notice. From there, it's a hop and a skip to who cares? I sure don't. Most of the time when I see someone saying Apple is a problem, it boils down to a few great features, or how sexy the hardware is, or some other similar thing, and how that thing just should not cost as much as Apple wants to charge for it. Or I see someone point out how the BOM doesn't seem to add up in their view, and how that means over the top margins that "the market" does not support meaning something has got to be wrong, rent seeking, monopoly, SOMETHING!!! The truth is so much more simple and I've already said it: Apple puts value into it's products as fully as they can and Apple charges for all of that value and the fact is there are plenty of people out there who see that value and pay up. They didn't get ripped off. They didn't get abused. They are not the victim in any way really. Apple made a nice, high value product and people saw that value and paid Apple for that value. Personally, I see it all break down this way when we look at prospective users and value: The top isn't worried about money and they like nice stuff which makes an easy, high profit sale for Apple. Many of these people will buy all Apple. Upper percentiles are also not worried about money, but are more practical. "nice stuff" isn't an easy sale to them. These people may buy all Apple, but are also pickers and choosers, maybe skipping Mac computers and buying iPhones. These are the most vocal complainers. Middle of the road prospects can be worried about money, with more worried now than we may have seen in a long time. They generally do not buy products because they are nice, though attractive to them. They do buy products because they find them useful and are always looking for deals. Lower percentiles will not typically buy Apple products new and do worry about money. While it's more complex than that, I find the rough brackets of people useful. Notice one last observation made possible by looking at this through the simple lens I just made: Apple sells most of it's products to the body of people who are willing and able to pay the most, no worries! These are the most profitable customers. Others may do twice the work Apple does to put a similar amount of money in the bank! This can look like some sort of monopoly or aberration in the market.

fsckboy 3y ago

you're not exactly agreeing with GP, you are going overboard, the court said these types of cases are covered by antitrust, but that Epic had failed to make its case. (like, murder is still illegal even if a particular case is not made) But it said ... that Epic, regardless, had “failed to establish, as a factual matter, its proposed market definition and the existence of any substantially less restrictive alternative means for Apple to accomplish the procompetitive justifications supporting iOS’s walled-garden ecosystem.” In other words, while these types of contracts can be within the scope of a Sherman Act claim, that wasn’t relevant to the court’s decision in this case.

dgoldstein0 3y ago

"buns glazing" Lol typo or intentional?

techdragon 3y ago
I love how autocorrect mistakes sometimes just come out sounding like rhyming slang… a less obtuse version than most real dialects of rhyming slang, more understandable by most people.
- jay_kyburz 3y ago
  There was an AI thread a few days ago about how Open AI could not come up with a catchy slogan for selling hot cross buns in the UK. Could be a reference to the thread, or the actual slogan used in the UK.
  - techdragon 3y ago
    It’s an interesting shortcoming of the large language models that they struggle to “play” with the rules of the language very much. I’ve tried to get GPT 3, 3.5, and 4 to generate business names and other names for things and it’s not particularly good at it. It frequently “runs out of creativity, and starts to repeat the same combination of basing building blocks. The worst example I came up with had moderately specific business names with a particular theme like an “1890s” or “1970s” or “late 1990s computer startup” style of name.. it would frequently run out and start repeating the same building blocks in under 50 examples, the absolute worst started repeating itself at about item 20 and the list gets increasingly repetitive from that point. I built a modified name generator based on some existing open source code that’s been around for several years now based on GPT2 and sure I couldn’t ask to go give me something with a specific theme… but damn it was way more creative at generating new words that could be names and it was t hard to filter the output to be useful since I could get it locally in batches of thousands overnight.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      On the contrary, I find that GPT - especially GPT-4 - is very good at playing with the rules of the language: https://gist.github.com/int19h/6fa34a86923cd681396393b21b9abce7 https://gist.github.com/int19h/6fa34a86923cd681396393b21b9ab...
a_e_k 3y ago
I'm guessing intentional spoonerism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism

ddingus 3y ago

I agree with you in that there is no Apple monopoly. What people are seeing may be something monopoly like because Apple is able to attract an affluent user base and then keep most of it over very long periods of time. In some ways, from Apple's point of view, Android does not exist! Android is not the same thing Apple is, and most computer manufacturers are not doing what Apple is doing with the Mac either. Sure, a computer is a computer and a phone is a phone, but Apple has a far greater control over it's product than it's competition does, except perhaps Google. Apple likes to sell products to people who will value them in the same way Apple does. A big part of that is Apple makes awful nice stuff! And unlike many other manufacturers, Apple asks for some money on every last bit of that value and Apple gets that money because it is all real value. I'm typing this on an M1 Air that I got for a song. It's a sweet machine! I said the same thing about the last Mac I owned and used regularly too. Got that one for a song as well. From Apple's point of view, I might as well not exist! I only value some of the things Apple does and that means I'm unwilling to pay what Apple asks for it's products, despite being a fan of said products. We get along just fine too. I'm not paying what Apple wants and I almost never use the app store either. I have the software running on the machine that I want to run, and I can write the programs I want to write, use the peripherals I want to use enjoy media I want to enjoy, on the machine I want to enjoy them on. No worries. Unlike many who disagree with Apple on value, I strongly support what Apple does and how they do it. It doesn't impact me one bit, or if it does and let's be real --it probably does, then I don't really notice. From there, it's a hop and a skip to who cares? I sure don't. Most of the time when I see someone saying Apple is a problem, it boils down to a few great features, or how sexy the hardware is, or some other similar thing, and how that thing just should not cost as much as Apple wants to charge for it. Or I see someone point out how the BOM doesn't seem to add up in their view, and how that means over the top margins that "the market" does not support meaning something has got to be wrong, rent seeking, monopoly, SOMETHING!!! The truth is so much more simple and I've already said it: Apple puts value into it's products as fully as they can and Apple charges for all of that value and the fact is there are plenty of people out there who see that value and pay up. They didn't get ripped off. They didn't get abused. They are not the victim in any way really. Apple made a nice, high value product and people saw that value and paid Apple for that value. Personally, I see it all break down this way when we look at prospective users and value: The top isn't worried about money and they like nice stuff which makes an easy, high profit sale for Apple. Many of these people will buy all Apple. Upper percentiles are also not worried about money, but are more practical. "nice stuff" isn't an easy sale to them. These people may buy all Apple, but are also pickers and choosers, maybe skipping Mac computers and buying iPhones. These are the most vocal complainers. Middle of the road prospects can be worried about money, with more worried now than we may have seen in a long time. They generally do not buy products because they are nice, though attractive to them. They do buy products because they find them useful and are always looking for deals. Lower percentiles will not typically buy Apple products new and do worry about money. While it's more complex than that, I find the rough brackets of people useful. Notice one last observation made possible by looking at this through the simple lens I just made: Apple sells most of it's products to the body of people who are willing and able to pay the most, no worries! These are the most profitable customers. Others may do twice the work Apple does to put a similar amount of money in the bank! This can look like some sort of monopoly or aberration in the market.