6 ms·

"Us vs. Them" language shapes the Apple ecosystem narrative

33 points by retskrad 2y ago

throwawayk7h 2y ago
https://unrollnow.com/status/1825068918509072852 https://unrollnow.com/status/1825068918509072852
- mococa 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - LorenDB 2y ago
    HN policy is that submissions always link to the primary source. Alternative proxy links (Thread Reader, archive.today, archive.org) are welcome in the comments, but as they are not the primary source, they should not be submitted as the HN topic.
    - neilv 2y ago
      And, for whatever reason, Twitter/X links get upvoted on HN. Otherwise, eventually word would get out to content creators that, if they want exposure on HN, they'd have to put their content somewhere other than Twitter/X.
      - LorenDB 2y ago
        From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. If there's things on Twitter that are interesting, they may be submitted. Blocking Twitter would effectively block quite a few interesting submissions. Furthermore, most people don't go to Twitter to get HN upvotes; they're going there for likes and retweets.
        thomassmith65 2y ago
        Blocking Twitter would effectively block quite a few interesting submissions. Society has a problem with information overload these days, not information shortage. If X is a pain in the ass to browse then 'screw em' - most of what anyone posts there is, or gets, regurgitated via the other social media sites, anyways.
      - next_xibalba 2y ago
        Don’t you think they get upvoted bc other HN users don’t share your opinion on X links or outright disagree with you?
        neilv 2y ago
        > Don’t you think they get upvoted bc other HN users don’t share your opinion on X links or outright disagree with you? I would guess that they get upvoted because people aren't aware of the concern, people are aware but disagree, people are aware and at least sorta disagree but didn't notice this time, or there's shill upvoting. Regardless of the reason, in theory, HN might have the power to change the behavior of Twitter/X posters.
        meiraleal 2y ago
        Most HN users comment on the title, not the content. The title and the xeet will have similar length anyway.
        next_xibalba 2y ago
        Said another way, they either don’t mind or don’t care about X links.
      - meiraleal 2y ago
        That will take a bit of time but I do flag and downvote whenever I can. I'm not going to signup to that to read 2 lines of text.
    - cma 2y ago
      At what point is the front page all original source intranet links?
  - 29athrowaway 2y ago
    Right. What else do you propose? a large book burning? destroying libraries? X (formerly Twitter) has a large trove of valuable content that dates from the "Twitter 1.0" era as well.
    - littlestymaar 2y ago
      Banning the media of an oligarch who supported book bans in public libraries would just sounds like karma to me.
      - 29athrowaway 2y ago
        Well, movies, music and video games have content rating, to the extent that a book that features tobacco use may be rated for certain audiences... For the sake of consistency, I would expect that a sexually explicit book would not be put in the hands of kids, same as we already do with other types of content such as music, movies and games. Now, there are books that should be banned. Like the Golden book of Chemistry Experiments and other books that can lead to potentially dangerous outcomes.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        Lots of harmless books were banned and curiously the Bible is exempted, but OK there's no problem and it's not censorship.
  - thomassmith65 2y ago
    I don't want an X account, so X links are useless to me. I don't subscribe to subscriptions, so NYT links etc... useless to me. I block privacy-abusing domains... AlphaGoogle links etc are inaccessible. I won't disable my adblocker... many commercial sites linked here no good to me. No Chrome browser... many other sites here don't work. Maybe it's crazy to expect the net to contain interesting websites that don't have wall-to-wall ads, tracking, require a subscription, or are limited to one specific browser. On the other hand, the web is an order of magnitude larger today than when I used to find such sites. If it were up to me, each link on HN would have a 'bad ux flag' button, and account settings would have a 'hide bad ux' filter. Then I would have the choice to browse HN without sifting through bad links myself.
    - LorenDB 2y ago
      > I don't want an X account, so X links are practically useless to me. And yet individual tweets can be read without an account. Of course, that doesn't work in this case as you will only see the first tweet in the thread, but you still can read a lot of HN submissions from Twitter.
      - thomassmith65 2y ago
        True, but mostly if I find a tweet worth a click, it's a long enough tweet that its author split it into several parts... of which I can read only the first.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        Nearly every tweet linked from HN is part of a thread because it's actually a blog post by someone who couldn't be bothered to have a proper blog.
    - katzinsky 2y ago
      >each link on HN would have a 'bad ux flag' button Do they check the github for PRs? That might be worth learning Arc for.
pphysch 2y ago
Apple doesn't necessarily making the best hardware or software, but they are definitely the best at branding and public relations.
- layer8 2y ago
  The former would benefit the user, while the latter mostly just benefits Apple.
- Spivak 2y ago
  This doesn't stand up to reality. You can't market your way into billions of sales over such a long period while a superior product exists at a lower price sold literally right next to it. You just can't hide the lack of signal for that long. The "iPhones are a status symbol" hasn't been true for a long time because everyone has them. They are the better software and hardware product full stop. Whether that makes them worth the premium they charge or whether the restrictions they impose make it less useful for the tasks you want to do is an individual decision. But the narrative that Apple has been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for 20 years doesn't work because people are using the product constantly every day. Source: Long time Android user from the Droid days who was fully convinced iPhones were a marketing scam until I actually used one in like 2022.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > You can't market your way into billions of sales over such a long period while a superior product exists at a lower price sold literally right next to it. Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" would like a word with you...
    - mleo 2y ago
      Consumers and companies will give up a lot for “free”. Look at social media and advertising. When one has to pay there is more scrutiny on a purchase.
    - Spivak 2y ago
      That's actually a great example of my point. For a long time IE was the best game in town, that's where all those pixeley "Works Best in Internet Explorer" banners came from. They got a boost from being the default but the bigger boost was because it was free. You had to pay for Netscape and later on Firefox/Opera were about the same. It wasn't until a truly better browser showed up, Chrome, that IE was unseated and that information spread like wildfire. It had a long tail of death from the perspective of web devs but they stopped being the market leader right quick.
wryoak 2y ago
I didn’t really see good examples of their claims in the unrollnow link - was there more on x proper? Admittedly I’m not an iOS/macOS dev so I’m probably not the target audience of this CtA. Or maybe I’m just too keen to the irony of using language to deconstruct another’s use of language, how the “us vs them” language shapes the argument about Apple’s own so-called “us vs them” language…
- LorenDB 2y ago
  See Tim Sweeney's take: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1825184744792793265 https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1825184744792793265 (Yes, individual tweets can be viewed without an account.)
qwerty456127 2y ago
> 4/10 The External Link Account Entitlement? It's like they're actively trying to make it sound complicated. WTF this even is? I have no idea what could "The External Link Account Entitlement" mean.
- chrisrhoden 2y ago
  Entitlements are flags (like AndroidManifest permissions) for apps allowing them to do things. It’s not something a user will ever encounter. In this case it is a flag indicating to the reviewer etc that the app links to a website for account creation and management rather than doing it all within the app.
  - qwerty456127 2y ago
    I see. Thank you for clarification.
  - frizlab 2y ago
    Yup. OP is deliberately comparing the language for the end users and the language for the developers for the purpose of a dubious conclusion.
    - qwerty456127 2y ago
      To me it seems the very distinction is toxic. All users of a platform should be considered equal, not separated into developers and consumers. Creating your own apps for whatever an audience to use it (for yourself, for specific people you want or for everyone) should be considered a normal feature any user may use.
      - frizlab 2y ago
        Tell that to my wife (:
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ButstonFreem 2y ago
[dead]
ranger_danger 2y ago
"Us vs Them" was an actual line in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", which was about Apple and Microsoft in the 80s. The phrase in the movie was referring to Macintosh vs Apple II camps within the company.

33 points by retskrad 2y ago

throwawayk7h 2y ago

https://unrollnow.com/status/1825068918509072852 https://unrollnow.com/status/1825068918509072852

mococa 2y ago
[flagged]
- LorenDB 2y ago
  HN policy is that submissions always link to the primary source. Alternative proxy links (Thread Reader, archive.today, archive.org) are welcome in the comments, but as they are not the primary source, they should not be submitted as the HN topic.
  - neilv 2y ago
    And, for whatever reason, Twitter/X links get upvoted on HN. Otherwise, eventually word would get out to content creators that, if they want exposure on HN, they'd have to put their content somewhere other than Twitter/X.
    - LorenDB 2y ago
      From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. If there's things on Twitter that are interesting, they may be submitted. Blocking Twitter would effectively block quite a few interesting submissions. Furthermore, most people don't go to Twitter to get HN upvotes; they're going there for likes and retweets.
      - thomassmith65 2y ago
        Blocking Twitter would effectively block quite a few interesting submissions. Society has a problem with information overload these days, not information shortage. If X is a pain in the ass to browse then 'screw em' - most of what anyone posts there is, or gets, regurgitated via the other social media sites, anyways.
    - next_xibalba 2y ago
      Don’t you think they get upvoted bc other HN users don’t share your opinion on X links or outright disagree with you?
      - neilv 2y ago
        > Don’t you think they get upvoted bc other HN users don’t share your opinion on X links or outright disagree with you? I would guess that they get upvoted because people aren't aware of the concern, people are aware but disagree, people are aware and at least sorta disagree but didn't notice this time, or there's shill upvoting. Regardless of the reason, in theory, HN might have the power to change the behavior of Twitter/X posters.
      - meiraleal 2y ago
        Most HN users comment on the title, not the content. The title and the xeet will have similar length anyway.
        next_xibalba 2y ago
        Said another way, they either don’t mind or don’t care about X links.
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      That will take a bit of time but I do flag and downvote whenever I can. I'm not going to signup to that to read 2 lines of text.
  - cma 2y ago
    At what point is the front page all original source intranet links?
- 29athrowaway 2y ago
  Right. What else do you propose? a large book burning? destroying libraries? X (formerly Twitter) has a large trove of valuable content that dates from the "Twitter 1.0" era as well.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    Banning the media of an oligarch who supported book bans in public libraries would just sounds like karma to me.
    - 29athrowaway 2y ago
      Well, movies, music and video games have content rating, to the extent that a book that features tobacco use may be rated for certain audiences... For the sake of consistency, I would expect that a sexually explicit book would not be put in the hands of kids, same as we already do with other types of content such as music, movies and games. Now, there are books that should be banned. Like the Golden book of Chemistry Experiments and other books that can lead to potentially dangerous outcomes.
      - littlestymaar 2y ago
        Lots of harmless books were banned and curiously the Bible is exempted, but OK there's no problem and it's not censorship.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  I don't want an X account, so X links are useless to me. I don't subscribe to subscriptions, so NYT links etc... useless to me. I block privacy-abusing domains... AlphaGoogle links etc are inaccessible. I won't disable my adblocker... many commercial sites linked here no good to me. No Chrome browser... many other sites here don't work. Maybe it's crazy to expect the net to contain interesting websites that don't have wall-to-wall ads, tracking, require a subscription, or are limited to one specific browser. On the other hand, the web is an order of magnitude larger today than when I used to find such sites. If it were up to me, each link on HN would have a 'bad ux flag' button, and account settings would have a 'hide bad ux' filter. Then I would have the choice to browse HN without sifting through bad links myself.
  - LorenDB 2y ago
    > I don't want an X account, so X links are practically useless to me. And yet individual tweets can be read without an account. Of course, that doesn't work in this case as you will only see the first tweet in the thread, but you still can read a lot of HN submissions from Twitter.
    - thomassmith65 2y ago
      True, but mostly if I find a tweet worth a click, it's a long enough tweet that its author split it into several parts... of which I can read only the first.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      Nearly every tweet linked from HN is part of a thread because it's actually a blog post by someone who couldn't be bothered to have a proper blog.
  - katzinsky 2y ago
    >each link on HN would have a 'bad ux flag' button Do they check the github for PRs? That might be worth learning Arc for.

pphysch 2y ago

Apple doesn't necessarily making the best hardware or software, but they are definitely the best at branding and public relations.

layer8 2y ago
The former would benefit the user, while the latter mostly just benefits Apple.
Spivak 2y ago
This doesn't stand up to reality. You can't market your way into billions of sales over such a long period while a superior product exists at a lower price sold literally right next to it. You just can't hide the lack of signal for that long. The "iPhones are a status symbol" hasn't been true for a long time because everyone has them. They are the better software and hardware product full stop. Whether that makes them worth the premium they charge or whether the restrictions they impose make it less useful for the tasks you want to do is an individual decision. But the narrative that Apple has been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for 20 years doesn't work because people are using the product constantly every day. Source: Long time Android user from the Droid days who was fully convinced iPhones were a marketing scam until I actually used one in like 2022.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > You can't market your way into billions of sales over such a long period while a superior product exists at a lower price sold literally right next to it. Microsoft's "Internet Explorer" would like a word with you...
  - mleo 2y ago
    Consumers and companies will give up a lot for “free”. Look at social media and advertising. When one has to pay there is more scrutiny on a purchase.
  - Spivak 2y ago
    That's actually a great example of my point. For a long time IE was the best game in town, that's where all those pixeley "Works Best in Internet Explorer" banners came from. They got a boost from being the default but the bigger boost was because it was free. You had to pay for Netscape and later on Firefox/Opera were about the same. It wasn't until a truly better browser showed up, Chrome, that IE was unseated and that information spread like wildfire. It had a long tail of death from the perspective of web devs but they stopped being the market leader right quick.

wryoak 2y ago

I didn’t really see good examples of their claims in the unrollnow link - was there more on x proper? Admittedly I’m not an iOS/macOS dev so I’m probably not the target audience of this CtA. Or maybe I’m just too keen to the irony of using language to deconstruct another’s use of language, how the “us vs them” language shapes the argument about Apple’s own so-called “us vs them” language…

LorenDB 2y ago
See Tim Sweeney's take: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1825184744792793265 https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1825184744792793265 (Yes, individual tweets can be viewed without an account.)

qwerty456127 2y ago

> 4/10 The External Link Account Entitlement? It's like they're actively trying to make it sound complicated. WTF this even is? I have no idea what could "The External Link Account Entitlement" mean.

chrisrhoden 2y ago
Entitlements are flags (like AndroidManifest permissions) for apps allowing them to do things. It’s not something a user will ever encounter. In this case it is a flag indicating to the reviewer etc that the app links to a website for account creation and management rather than doing it all within the app.
- qwerty456127 2y ago
  I see. Thank you for clarification.
- frizlab 2y ago
  Yup. OP is deliberately comparing the language for the end users and the language for the developers for the purpose of a dubious conclusion.
  - qwerty456127 2y ago
    To me it seems the very distinction is toxic. All users of a platform should be considered equal, not separated into developers and consumers. Creating your own apps for whatever an audience to use it (for yourself, for specific people you want or for everyone) should be considered a normal feature any user may use.
    - frizlab 2y ago
      Tell that to my wife (:

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ButstonFreem 2y ago

[dead]

ranger_danger 2y ago

"Us vs Them" was an actual line in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", which was about Apple and Microsoft in the 80s. The phrase in the movie was referring to Macintosh vs Apple II camps within the company.