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> the only logical conclusion: You can block ads all you want, and website owners can block you all they want. I very much agree with this bit. The real worry

> the only logical conclusion: You can block ads all you want, and website owners can block you all they want. I very much agree with this bit. The real worry is the next step, as per your TOS you force me to render your website content only in an "approved" signed browser. This is a step several players are pushing towards (Netflix and others are already there, but for distinct reasons- at least they degrade your experience if you aren't using an approved stack). This we need to fight against.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago
I mean, what if there are actual technical limitations of whatever browser you'd like to use that prevent, for example, the on-the-fly playback of 4K video? Or, even more broadly, what if the device you're watching on has insufficient compute to accomplish the task? Do you, as proverbial Netflix's chief engineer or whatever, degrade the quality of the experience so things run smoothly, or do you press on and let the user choose a worse experience, and leave nasty feedback on public listings/forums/what have you? I don't mean to argue for the Netflix's in this situation, I'm just genuinely curious what HN thinks of this: in a situation where whatever tech a user is bringing to the table is insufficient to run your product, be it hardware or software, what do you do? I've been in a situation myself where the tech stack of our user base was directly contributing to the stream of angry emails our support was getting and was forbidden by management to gate content only to those who we knew could run it, yet simultaneously was held responsible for the negative impressions of our product as a result of it. I left that job soon after because it was an obvious lose/lose scenario.
- yesco 3y ago
  Netflix does not offer 1080p+ content to people watching on a Linux desktop. There is no technical reason for this, Linux browsers are capable of playing 1080p+ content of course. So why do you think Netflix does this? Rather than deal with hypotheticals let's focus on reality, a lot of people have put a lot of effort into ensuring that web browsers can run the same content on every platform. This is already a solved problem, even if imperfect. The only genuine reason a device might not be able to play a browser supported 4k video is because it's too resource expensive (rare) and this is simply an immutable property of computers that isn't going to change unless you are expecting all users to use the exact same hardware forever.
  - ToucanLoucan 3y ago
    > Rather than deal with hypotheticals let's focus on reality Imagine coming into a discussion telling of a thing you experienced and then the reply is: I don't want to discuss hypotheticals, which is great because a) this isn't a hypothetical, it's the reason I quit my last job and b) you replied to my comment, which is the only way you could possibly even have the chance to discuss this. I am explaining (admittedly with low detail because Internet) an actual situation I experienced, and it's not like there aren't all manner of entertainment product available on the market which requires a floor of technical power to consume in a way the average consumer would deem acceptable, be that hardware requirements like VR or other bespoke controlling apparatus, or looser ones like the minimum requirements on videogames, or more is-or-isn't ones like the ability for streamer boxes, phones or tablets to playback video of a given resolution and at a given frame rate.
    - yesco 3y ago
      > I mean, what if there are actual technical limitations of whatever browser you'd like to use that prevent, for example, the on-the-fly playback of 4K video? This is the core of what you were asking, perhaps my answer was too roundabout for you. What I'm trying to tell you is that: - This question is a hypothetical because it's not true, you can encode videos to play on every platform so long as it's browser supported, this is not 2013 - There is not a technical floor in video playback of even 4k videos unless you are playing on something like a first gen raspberry pi, and even then, bandwidth constraints necessitate multi-quality video support regardless - VR and other "manners of entertainment" are moving goal posts and irrelevant to this discussion - Streaming content to multiple platforms is a solved problem, if you failed to accomplish this then it sounds to me that you probably couldn't do your job - Using platform based attestation to resolve this technical incompetentcy is an unreasonable solution to the problem and deserving of complaints
  - andrepd 3y ago
    >Netflix does not offer 1080p+ content to people watching on a Linux desktop This is the reason I refuse to use streaming platforms even though I have enough money to pay for them. It's not a question of money. It's a question of: paying money to install spyware on my computer for the privilege of streaming low-quality video on a list of pre-approved devices? That is simply not gonna happen.

ToucanLoucan 3y ago

I mean, what if there are actual technical limitations of whatever browser you'd like to use that prevent, for example, the on-the-fly playback of 4K video? Or, even more broadly, what if the device you're watching on has insufficient compute to accomplish the task? Do you, as proverbial Netflix's chief engineer or whatever, degrade the quality of the experience so things run smoothly, or do you press on and let the user choose a worse experience, and leave nasty feedback on public listings/forums/what have you? I don't mean to argue for the Netflix's in this situation, I'm just genuinely curious what HN thinks of this: in a situation where whatever tech a user is bringing to the table is insufficient to run your product, be it hardware or software, what do you do? I've been in a situation myself where the tech stack of our user base was directly contributing to the stream of angry emails our support was getting and was forbidden by management to gate content only to those who we knew could run it, yet simultaneously was held responsible for the negative impressions of our product as a result of it. I left that job soon after because it was an obvious lose/lose scenario.

yesco 3y ago
Netflix does not offer 1080p+ content to people watching on a Linux desktop. There is no technical reason for this, Linux browsers are capable of playing 1080p+ content of course. So why do you think Netflix does this? Rather than deal with hypotheticals let's focus on reality, a lot of people have put a lot of effort into ensuring that web browsers can run the same content on every platform. This is already a solved problem, even if imperfect. The only genuine reason a device might not be able to play a browser supported 4k video is because it's too resource expensive (rare) and this is simply an immutable property of computers that isn't going to change unless you are expecting all users to use the exact same hardware forever.
- ToucanLoucan 3y ago
  > Rather than deal with hypotheticals let's focus on reality Imagine coming into a discussion telling of a thing you experienced and then the reply is: I don't want to discuss hypotheticals, which is great because a) this isn't a hypothetical, it's the reason I quit my last job and b) you replied to my comment, which is the only way you could possibly even have the chance to discuss this. I am explaining (admittedly with low detail because Internet) an actual situation I experienced, and it's not like there aren't all manner of entertainment product available on the market which requires a floor of technical power to consume in a way the average consumer would deem acceptable, be that hardware requirements like VR or other bespoke controlling apparatus, or looser ones like the minimum requirements on videogames, or more is-or-isn't ones like the ability for streamer boxes, phones or tablets to playback video of a given resolution and at a given frame rate.
  - yesco 3y ago
    > I mean, what if there are actual technical limitations of whatever browser you'd like to use that prevent, for example, the on-the-fly playback of 4K video? This is the core of what you were asking, perhaps my answer was too roundabout for you. What I'm trying to tell you is that: - This question is a hypothetical because it's not true, you can encode videos to play on every platform so long as it's browser supported, this is not 2013 - There is not a technical floor in video playback of even 4k videos unless you are playing on something like a first gen raspberry pi, and even then, bandwidth constraints necessitate multi-quality video support regardless - VR and other "manners of entertainment" are moving goal posts and irrelevant to this discussion - Streaming content to multiple platforms is a solved problem, if you failed to accomplish this then it sounds to me that you probably couldn't do your job - Using platform based attestation to resolve this technical incompetentcy is an unreasonable solution to the problem and deserving of complaints
- andrepd 3y ago
  >Netflix does not offer 1080p+ content to people watching on a Linux desktop This is the reason I refuse to use streaming platforms even though I have enough money to pay for them. It's not a question of money. It's a question of: paying money to install spyware on my computer for the privilege of streaming low-quality video on a list of pre-approved devices? That is simply not gonna happen.