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> Fucking good. Seconded. Perpetually baffled by the so-called hackers in all of these threads arguing vociferously against user freedom.
by kibwen 3y ago
> Fucking good.
Seconded. Perpetually baffled by the so-called hackers in all of these threads arguing vociferously against user freedom.
- martimarkov 3y agoYou have freedom to chose the platform.
- Aeolun 3y agoI have the freedom to choose between Google or Apple. That’s not very free at all.
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y agolol that isnt going to change even if they allow app sideloading or other web browser engines
- nouveaux 3y agohttps://puri.sm/products/liberty-phone/ https://puri.sm/products/liberty-phone/
- kaba0 3y agoIt has to be usable.
- jker 3y ago"Starting at $2,199" Freedom isn't free, apparently.
- oblio 3y agoNot if you care about externalities, it isn't.
- Scharkenberg 3y agoIt's not (just) because of externalities that that model costs 2199 USD.
- oblio 3y agoI'm not saying you're wrong, but what else is included in that cost, in your opinion?
- Scharkenberg 3y agoEconomies of scale / specialized production / labor costs / higher margins on "premium" production lines.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y agoWhat do you actually WANT then?
- copperx 3y agoA Windows phone. Just kidding. Kind of.
- matheusmoreira 3y agoI want the keys to the machine. I want corporations to accept that and deal with us on our terms.
- Aeolun 3y agoI want nobody to force me to use the hardware I paid for in a specific way, especially if that arbitrarily limits the functionality of the device. If there were more than just those two providers (say, 10) we’d likely have at least one option like that.
- adesanmi 3y agoSo you go to purchase a device from a company who has been doing this since their very existence, is known for doing this, and has never pretended or tricked consumers into thinking they don’t do this. A closed ecosystem is Apple’s M.O. - and I can’t think of any sane person who cares about repairability who goes to them. They all own open phones such as the Fairphone. I love mine.
- blackoil 3y agoYeah two American companies with HQ next to each other.
- jahav 3y agoHuawei and HarmonyOS? I know, rather unpopular ouside of China.
- kaba0 3y agoWhere do you want to get punched, in the stomach or in your face? Similar dilemma.
- matheusmoreira 3y agoNot if you want to run WhatsApp or your bank's app.
- toastal 3y agoEven the KaiOS support ended for WhatsApp. That’s not to say anyone should use that metadata-scraping, address-book-stealing service anyhow.
- matheusmoreira 3y agoIf only I could avoid it. Everyone in my country uses WhatsApp for literally everything. My choices are: (1) using WhatsApp, or (2) being ostracized. At least it has end-to-end encryption.
- junofan 3y agoI can already self-sign and run software on my iPhone. Would be cool if Apple removed whatever locks prevent running alternative OSs. But iOS is already a complete, cohesive, & secure offering. I don’t really see the hacker ethos in compelling Apple to switch out bits and pieces of their operating system so Google can make more cash. Would much rather be able to install Android or similar.
- JoshuaRogers 3y agoI think it comes down to what we expect the second order effects to be. Those who argue that forcing Apple to open up their ecosystem is a good thing appear to believe that increased user freedom will lead to more option for all and increase freedom further. Those of us who argue that being forced to open their ecosystem is a bad thing believe (speaking personally) that any user freedom added would quickly be lost and set further back than we started as larger organizations would end up strong-arming or tricking users into giving away their freedom or fear missing out. Personally I think we all want to see long-term user freedom, and I think whether we expect it to move forward or backward is what differs between us seeing this as good or bad.
- Kinrany 3y agoSo less freedom is good because freedom is good but any extra freedom will be stolen anyway? This is an idiotic take.
- Spivak 3y agoYes, you're poorly explaining the difference between freedom-as-in-liberty and freedom-as-in-anarchy and then calling it idiotic. You are literally more free if there were no laws about murder but your actual real life freedom would be reduced because you of all the precautions you now have to take. Apple right now is operating as a de facto governing body forcing developers on the platform to follow its rules that whether or not you like it do sometimes benefit the user against some of the very worst actors. Taking away their ability to have those rules does also take away the benefits users get. And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections. Whether or not that's worth it to you is fine, both stances are valid but it does logically follow.
- Kinrany 3y ago> And lord knows actual governments, even the EU, aren't going to enforce consumer protections. Ah yes, we don't trust an actual elected government to enforce consumer protections, so we'll trust a private monopoly instead. In a thread about said government enforcing said consumer protections, no less.
- diego_sandoval 3y agoTo me, actual freedom, understood as being free from unjust coercion, is more important than "user freedom", understood as having a wide range of services and goods to choose from. In this case, the former is being attacked in order to achieve the latter.
- Daishiman 3y agoUsers in a duopoly are getting coerced to a degree far more important to individual freedoms than the largest publicly traded corporation.
- diego_sandoval 3y agoUsers are not being coerced. Not being offered the products you want is not coercion.
- indigo0086 3y agoYou're leaning many HN dwellers are communists
- pmontra 3y agoCommunists as in collective ownership of the means of production or Communists as in some other non canonical definition?
- TheCoelacanth 3y agoAh, yes, of course. Doing the slightest thing to reign in the worst abuses of trillion dollar companies is equivalent to completely abolishing private property. Thanks for the insight.
- l33t7332273 3y agoAt some point it is. A smart phone is essentially a need today.
- Daishiman 3y ago
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago[flagged]
- indigo0086 3y agoUser has the freedom to buy or not. Any other expectations the user has can't be regulated into existence and be called "freedom". So-called hackers constantly begging for regulation without thinking one step ahead of the consequences of increased tech regulation is more baffling.
- Kbelicius 3y ago> User has the freedom to buy or not. User also has the freedom to use whatever he bought in any way he sees fit (as long as it isn't illegal). Or do you consider that something a user shouldn't be able to do?
- adesanmi 3y agoAnd a business has freedom to restrict their products to prevent what they believe isn’t the use case they want. And users have the freedom to put their money where their mouth is by purchasing alternatives on the market.
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoAnd government has freedom to restrict business from restricting their users freedom to do what they want with the products they bought. I feel like we're going around in circles.
- bitwize 3y agoApple has done more for user freedom than the open source movement ever could, by creating products that uncompromisingly put the user first, enabling ordinary people to do things they could never do before. Tech nerds are a tiny sliver of a tiny sliver of the market; compared to the empowered users who appreciate Apple's commitment to keep its platforms secure and high quality, the number of people who really want to be able to run arbitrary (perhaps malicious) code on their device is negligible. Even then, Steve Jobs could, with a wave of his hand, instantly achieve things tech nerds had been struggling to do for years before: things like make Flash go away or make DRM on digital music no longer be a thing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- smoldesu 3y ago[dead]
- huytersd 3y ago[flagged]
- lern_too_spel 3y agoEasy. Buy an Android device from a reputable vendor. Then you get both a solid device and user freedom.
- huytersd 3y ago[dead]
- caskstrength 3y agoAnd I am perpetually baffled by people crying "Steve Jobs phone open when???!!1" in every such thread, so let me explain in clear terms that even most obtuse people could understand: I spent enough time removing crap like MacKeeper from my GFs/mothers MacBooks and really _not_ looking forward to having to do the same on their iPhones. No, they don't need "freedom" to be tricked into installing crapware on their devices same way as I don't need "freedom" to cut my face with an open razor. _Real_ cool haxxors like you (as opossed to "so-called hackers") can buy an Android device and install whatever software they want like I did.
- matheusmoreira 3y ago> buy an Android device and install whatever software they want like I did Good luck with that. Hardware remote attestation will fail, outing you to the corporations as someone who "tampered" with the device. You'll be refused service based on that alone, from frivolous content consumption to vital banking services.
- caskstrength 3y agoWhat does it have to do with forcing Apple to allow installing iOS software outside of their approved appstore? Manually installed FF from hypothetical non-Apple store will somehow magically pass remote attestation on iOS or what?
- matheusmoreira 3y agoIt has everything to do with it. Computing freedom is paramount. We should be able to install whatever software we like on our machines. Therefore it follows that corporations shouldn't be able to discriminate against us for doing so. Things like remote attestation should be illegal.
- caskstrength 3y agoSo it is not related at all either to the article or my previous comment? Okay...
- matheusmoreira 3y agoYeah, I don't understand it at all. It's shocking to me to see people on Hacker News defend the trillion dollar corporation's right to literally own their computers and their entire digital lives. We shouldn't even have to justify these viewpoints here.
- jampekka 3y agoJust the good old War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
- cakemuncher 3y ago[flagged]
- troupo 3y agoSurrendering to Chrome isn't user freedom either
- TheHappyOddish 3y agoI find it confusing. I've never walked into a bakery that only sells chocolate cake, bought the cake and moaned about it not being vanilla. That would be insane. No educated tech people are buying into Apples ecosystem without awareness of the limitations. If this is an issue, why be in this ecosystem at all?