4 ms·

To be honest, I feel vastly indifferent towards the current whole DMA conflict on who is gonna get what profits from microtransactions out of addicting games (o

by dimask 3y ago

To be honest, I feel vastly indifferent towards the current whole DMA conflict on who is gonna get what profits from microtransactions out of addicting games (often targeting minors), and I think it is nothing alike the issues the monopolistic position of microsoft was causing in the 90s-00s. But otherwise yeah, this is how any corporation this size behaves always.

pjerem 3y ago
I honestly think it’s worse this time. Microsoft was in monopolistic position and yes it was a serious issue, but at least it was on standard computers. It was a de facto monopoly but you were mostly free to escape by removing Microsoft from your computer (which basically meant installing Linux). Nowadays, our platforms are heavily locked, which gives Google and Apple an unprecedented power over all the computers of the world. For sure, if you aren’t satisfied anymore with your phone / tablet because your OS vendor changes the rules months or years after your purchase, you are "free" to switch … as long as you are ok to lose all your investment in the platform, as long as you have hundred of dollars to throw into another phone for the the same usage, and as long as you are confident that the only other OS vendor will not make another stupid decision for the years to come. The world is trapped between two aggressive monopolies and everyone acts like the market offers enough competition to fulfill everyone’s needs. The state of affairs is bad enough that the most probable new competitor could have only been Microsoft.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  In hindsight, I think Microsoft was stopped from taking ownership of the internet back then (by bundling the Internet Explorer and taking control over the whole experience, evolution of standards, etc.). It was already (very!) close back then, it still took a decade to reverse that. Now we are dealing (among others) with the same topic, but are already much deeper in the swamp: Several companies are actively working to replace the internet with a walled abstraction they own and monetize, for more than a decade now, trying to argue "it's not the internet, it's an app!" or "it's not the internet, it's a profile-page on our portal!" IMO we're deeper in it now, because of how much better these arguments seem to work now among tech-people I talk to (compared to how futile Microsoft's arguments were for tech-people back then)
- dimask 3y ago
  Imo phones where never used or intended to be used as computers. This is not just about monopolies; a touch interface offers a completely different UX than a keyboard and affords very different relationships with the hardware. I am not even sure if any alternative to this user experience and relationship exists (and I am not talking about geeks and hackers who are gonna make anything out of anything). And you are not even free to switch really except between android and ios. I do not know what others here used their phones as, but for me it is a lot about essential and quasi-essential apps ranging from banking, mobile paying, 2fas, chats, and several service-related apps. A lot of these are almost essential in everyday life and not replaceable by something else. I do not want to risk to get some custom OS that offers some interoperability and discover one day that app X that I need cannot work there. I do not really use my phone as something that replaces my computer.
  - surgical_fire 3y ago
    This makes it even worse. I am locked into platforms, completely at mercy of corporations that can completely fuck me over (see for example when Google decided that you violated some ToS and locks your account), and that happens for a device that that had "essential and quasi-essential apps". Hell, right now I wouldn't even be able to pay for electricity if Google looked at me the wrong way. It's precisely on that device that I want interoperability, open platforms, etc.
rickdeckard 3y ago
> I think it is nothing alike the issues the monopolistic position of microsoft was causing in the 90s-00s If you look into it with a "fresh eye", you may find that this is about several companies competing to replace _the internet_ with an abstracted platform they own and monetize exclusively. We're just so deep into that journey already that it's not that obvious anymore, not noticing how some of those companies actively limit their contributions to open standards in favor of having proprietary advantages in this competition for "the next internet". All this behavior is not sufficiently regulated (because 20 years ago it wasn't necessary as tech companies HAD TO collaborate across industries to make big things happen), but I'd argue that it should be.
- geraldhh 3y ago
  yea, could we please sanction the v4 internet of the last two decades as un world heritage or something and make the gold diggers leave for some unregulated ar/ai-mine elsewhere.

by dimask 3y ago

pjerem 3y ago

I honestly think it’s worse this time. Microsoft was in monopolistic position and yes it was a serious issue, but at least it was on standard computers. It was a de facto monopoly but you were mostly free to escape by removing Microsoft from your computer (which basically meant installing Linux). Nowadays, our platforms are heavily locked, which gives Google and Apple an unprecedented power over all the computers of the world. For sure, if you aren’t satisfied anymore with your phone / tablet because your OS vendor changes the rules months or years after your purchase, you are "free" to switch … as long as you are ok to lose all your investment in the platform, as long as you have hundred of dollars to throw into another phone for the the same usage, and as long as you are confident that the only other OS vendor will not make another stupid decision for the years to come. The world is trapped between two aggressive monopolies and everyone acts like the market offers enough competition to fulfill everyone’s needs. The state of affairs is bad enough that the most probable new competitor could have only been Microsoft.

rickdeckard 3y ago
In hindsight, I think Microsoft was stopped from taking ownership of the internet back then (by bundling the Internet Explorer and taking control over the whole experience, evolution of standards, etc.). It was already (very!) close back then, it still took a decade to reverse that. Now we are dealing (among others) with the same topic, but are already much deeper in the swamp: Several companies are actively working to replace the internet with a walled abstraction they own and monetize, for more than a decade now, trying to argue "it's not the internet, it's an app!" or "it's not the internet, it's a profile-page on our portal!" IMO we're deeper in it now, because of how much better these arguments seem to work now among tech-people I talk to (compared to how futile Microsoft's arguments were for tech-people back then)
dimask 3y ago
Imo phones where never used or intended to be used as computers. This is not just about monopolies; a touch interface offers a completely different UX than a keyboard and affords very different relationships with the hardware. I am not even sure if any alternative to this user experience and relationship exists (and I am not talking about geeks and hackers who are gonna make anything out of anything). And you are not even free to switch really except between android and ios. I do not know what others here used their phones as, but for me it is a lot about essential and quasi-essential apps ranging from banking, mobile paying, 2fas, chats, and several service-related apps. A lot of these are almost essential in everyday life and not replaceable by something else. I do not want to risk to get some custom OS that offers some interoperability and discover one day that app X that I need cannot work there. I do not really use my phone as something that replaces my computer.
- surgical_fire 3y ago
  This makes it even worse. I am locked into platforms, completely at mercy of corporations that can completely fuck me over (see for example when Google decided that you violated some ToS and locks your account), and that happens for a device that that had "essential and quasi-essential apps". Hell, right now I wouldn't even be able to pay for electricity if Google looked at me the wrong way. It's precisely on that device that I want interoperability, open platforms, etc.

rickdeckard 3y ago

> I think it is nothing alike the issues the monopolistic position of microsoft was causing in the 90s-00s If you look into it with a "fresh eye", you may find that this is about several companies competing to replace _the internet_ with an abstracted platform they own and monetize exclusively. We're just so deep into that journey already that it's not that obvious anymore, not noticing how some of those companies actively limit their contributions to open standards in favor of having proprietary advantages in this competition for "the next internet". All this behavior is not sufficiently regulated (because 20 years ago it wasn't necessary as tech companies HAD TO collaborate across industries to make big things happen), but I'd argue that it should be.

geraldhh 3y ago
yea, could we please sanction the v4 internet of the last two decades as un world heritage or something and make the gold diggers leave for some unregulated ar/ai-mine elsewhere.