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Before we put all the blame on vendors, I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, this: the public finds this tradeoff (privacy for entertainment) completely accep

Before we put all the blame on vendors, I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, this: the public finds this tradeoff (privacy for entertainment) completely acceptable. With all the outrage, privacy-centric solutions are out there and relatively easy to find, how come they don't get more traction? Including among the HN crowd?

pseudocomposer 2y ago
“The least bad option in a market oriented against users and designed to maximize profit” is not the same as “completely acceptable.”
- MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
  I believe GP is referring to things like privacy-centric de-Googled Android phones, which definitely are an option. I would not classify those as "least bad" or even bad. GP is correct about Apple products; even among the HN crowd they are likely the most popular devices. I think this is because most readers aren't trying to die on the hill of openness. They're more concerned with software and ubiquity, two areas where Apple is doing very well. You do get many here enthusiastic about open access to your own hardware, but I think we're talking about a Venn diagram; we're not all the same. (I'm an Android user.)
  - pseudocomposer 2y ago
    Actually, I was disagreeing with the GP specifically about Apple products. I'm an Apple user, but very much because they're the "least bad" option. De-Googled Android phones still have awful audio latency (I'm a musician who makes a music app on the side), very limited messaging and notification features, and integrate poorly with desktop OSes. For how I use my devices, open or no, Android simply isn't a viable option. The thing about all this is, Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are. The EU move to force them to use USB-C/Thunderbolt over Lightning is a perfect example of this. It unilaterally improved things for users, and iPhone 14 vs. 15 sales reflected that pretty clearly. So I'd especially describe Apple as the "least bad" rather than "completely acceptable." They're specifically what I had in mind saying that.
    - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
      > Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are. That's definitely true, and it's what has made me favor Google over Apple for decades now. Google's deal has been free software for the price of your user data, but I've accepted that deal because Google has never practiced predatory lock-in. Apple makes claims to value your privacy (I wouldn't know) while making predatory lock-in fundamental to everything they do. Denying access to your own device is part of this. The irony is that I loathe the data economy. I think it has gone far beyond what Google ever envisioned (for years it seemed they had yet to discover a way to make money at all). The privacy aspect matters, but I also hate the way it makes companies and their products behave; the way it feels like every click results in an attempt to directly advertise to you. And it's all clumsy and broken. How often are ads even correctly targeted? I feel about conglomerated user data the way I feel about meme coins: it's all built on speculation, hopes, and dreams, and has less to do with people actually buying your product. I can't wait for the bubble to burst and/or for a global ban on the sale and purchase of user data.
      - pseudocomposer 2y ago
        I think we're very much in agreement on most of these things, and our "platform loyalty" led us to perceive different options as the "least bad" - that's totally okay, though! I was an Android user from 2009-2020 because I agreed with you, up until I started working on my own music software, which pushed things the other way for me. For your last sentence, though... user data and its utilities are arguably not a "bubble." And as we've seen with AI training, use of data being illegal doesn't really stop companies from doing it. I think we'll have better actual results from governments forcing Apple to let us run our own software on the hardware we buy, as opposed to governments trying to prevent Google, Meta, et. al. from abusing customer data. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the former is about regulating our rights with hardware, while the latter is about software. Hardware is just easier for governments to regulate. When you try to regulate software, companies will do things like the deliberately-annoying cookie popups we got after GDPR/CCPA, because it's cheap to produce lots of bullshit to experiment with ways around those regulations.
ragnese 2y ago
Exactly. Even the people who complain about these things immediately get defensive when you call them out on their uses: "Well, I can't switch because what about my banking app?" or "Well, games don't count as software to me." or "It won't make any difference to the big tech companies if I'm the only one who switches, so why bother?"
lapcat 2y ago
> privacy-centric solutions are out there and relatively easy to find Really? Please name them. Over the past 10 or 15 years, I've never seen anything other than the iPhone/Android or Mac/Windows duopoly for sale in any retail store. I've never seen any advertising for other than those duopolies. The HN crowd may be aware of obscure options, but for the vast majority of consumers, they don't exist. And since we as developers make money catering to the vast majority of consumers, we're kind of stuck with the duopoly too, at least as far as our work is concerned.
- regnull 2y ago
  Here you go: https://us.starlabs.systems/ https://us.starlabs.systems/ Now, how many of you guys have this? Or anything like this? I bet 95% of the HN crowd happily uses iOS/Android daily.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    I've never even heard of that before, and I'm terminally online. Anyway, desktop computers aren't really the main problem here. For example, Apple Macs offer vastly more personal freedom than Apple iPhones. If iPhones behaved like Macs in that respect, then we might not be having this debate. To the extent that Macs have been increasingly locked down over the past 15 years, it's mostly just copying the iPhone, porting the "features" over from one platform to the other.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    This is the first time I heard about it. Has anyone looked into their claims? Would love to buy an affordable Linux pad or a mini PC.
    - regnull 2y ago
      FWIW, I have no idea if this is any good. My point is, I found this after maybe 3 minutes searching. If we were to spend 30 minutes, we would definitely find something reasonable.
Ajedi32 2y ago
This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway. This is about your right to have control of your own property. You make a fair point though; the case does need to be made as to why this is a market failure and not just consumer choice working as expected. Why _do_ consumers tolerate manufacturers retaining ultimate control of consumer's property after the sale? It certainly doesn't seem to be that important to them. Maybe greater awareness of the issue would help somewhat?
- klabb3 2y ago
  > This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway. Agree fully. Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on me. It’s not that, but the right to repair, to tinker, to hack. Those things have brought us so much interesting wonderful things. My entire generation (millennial) has superior tech literacy to both those that came before and after (no shade to the older gen - some of you are better than us, but with millennials it’s so much more widespread than eg gen X). Many younger gens never use ”real” computers (only tablet & phone). The gilded age was an anomaly, and is over. > the case does need to be made as to why this is a market failure and not just consumer choice working as expected I swear this consumer choice navel gazing will be the death of innovation. The US is obsessed with this narrative, that the magic market hand will self-correct, without any justification or scrutiny. Yes, consumer choice is necessary, but not sufficient. Just look at the developments in tech over the last decade+. I don’t have the solution but anyone who’s not entirely lost in dogma should be able to see the failures.
  - Ajedi32 2y ago
    Market failures do happen, so I'm not claiming consumer choice is the perfect solution in every case. But consumers aren't stupid either; if this _were_ a mainstream concern the market _would_ self-correct. But it hasn't self-corrected on this issue, because most consumers don't really care that much. So I think you have to carefully consider why that is before you start thinking you know what they want better than than they do and eliminating certain choices by government decree. There are costs to any regulation, and lots of possible unintended consequences. So even though I'm personally a strong advocate for user control and software freedom, I'm wary of acting without strong justification and careful consideration of the underlying reasons behind the status quo. > I accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on me. For what it's worth, I do think this issue has indirect effects on privacy. If you have ultimate control of the software on your device, you can use that control in ways that help protect your privacy. Otherwise you're limited to whatever protections the manufacturer decides to grant you. There are lots of similar positive possible downstream effects of software freedom, which is why I think this is an issue worth serious consideration despite my misgivings.
freedomben 2y ago
I have no data to back this up. So what follows is purely my personal opinion. I think the reason people don't care, is because they don't know. The average person either doesn't know or barely knows That anything deeper than what they see in the user interface is happening on their system. We humans are very much an out of sight out of mind type of creature. If we can't see it, it's hard for us to imagine that it exists.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  People know, Facebook and Google getting crap for all their tracking is evidence enough. The reason people don't care is because digital freedom/privacy is largely irrelevant to most people's lives. You can't convince someone to care about something that doesn't affect their life, they're too busy for that.
_aavaa_ 2y ago
There is nothing inherent to the benefits that these companies tout that require them to lock us out of our own devices. What you are describing is not a tradeoff but a magnificent bribe. They bribe us with measly benefits in order to accept the deal that is incredibly favourable for them. See: https://reallifemag.com/the-magnificent-bribe/ https://reallifemag.com/the-magnificent-bribe/
chainingsolid 2y ago
I'd argue the general population doesn't even know this trade off exists (not helped by the pros being advertised to users and the cons purposely not mentioned). Even then the minority (us) shouldn't be stopped from doing what we want with our stuff just so some company can make more money.
fsflover 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348

pseudocomposer 2y ago

“The least bad option in a market oriented against users and designed to maximize profit” is not the same as “completely acceptable.”

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
I believe GP is referring to things like privacy-centric de-Googled Android phones, which definitely are an option. I would not classify those as "least bad" or even bad. GP is correct about Apple products; even among the HN crowd they are likely the most popular devices. I think this is because most readers aren't trying to die on the hill of openness. They're more concerned with software and ubiquity, two areas where Apple is doing very well. You do get many here enthusiastic about open access to your own hardware, but I think we're talking about a Venn diagram; we're not all the same. (I'm an Android user.)
- pseudocomposer 2y ago
  Actually, I was disagreeing with the GP specifically about Apple products. I'm an Apple user, but very much because they're the "least bad" option. De-Googled Android phones still have awful audio latency (I'm a musician who makes a music app on the side), very limited messaging and notification features, and integrate poorly with desktop OSes. For how I use my devices, open or no, Android simply isn't a viable option. The thing about all this is, Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are. The EU move to force them to use USB-C/Thunderbolt over Lightning is a perfect example of this. It unilaterally improved things for users, and iPhone 14 vs. 15 sales reflected that pretty clearly. So I'd especially describe Apple as the "least bad" rather than "completely acceptable." They're specifically what I had in mind saying that.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
    > Apple's products being well-integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way they are. That's definitely true, and it's what has made me favor Google over Apple for decades now. Google's deal has been free software for the price of your user data, but I've accepted that deal because Google has never practiced predatory lock-in. Apple makes claims to value your privacy (I wouldn't know) while making predatory lock-in fundamental to everything they do. Denying access to your own device is part of this. The irony is that I loathe the data economy. I think it has gone far beyond what Google ever envisioned (for years it seemed they had yet to discover a way to make money at all). The privacy aspect matters, but I also hate the way it makes companies and their products behave; the way it feels like every click results in an attempt to directly advertise to you. And it's all clumsy and broken. How often are ads even correctly targeted? I feel about conglomerated user data the way I feel about meme coins: it's all built on speculation, hopes, and dreams, and has less to do with people actually buying your product. I can't wait for the bubble to burst and/or for a global ban on the sale and purchase of user data.
    - pseudocomposer 2y ago
      I think we're very much in agreement on most of these things, and our "platform loyalty" led us to perceive different options as the "least bad" - that's totally okay, though! I was an Android user from 2009-2020 because I agreed with you, up until I started working on my own music software, which pushed things the other way for me. For your last sentence, though... user data and its utilities are arguably not a "bubble." And as we've seen with AI training, use of data being illegal doesn't really stop companies from doing it. I think we'll have better actual results from governments forcing Apple to let us run our own software on the hardware we buy, as opposed to governments trying to prevent Google, Meta, et. al. from abusing customer data. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the former is about regulating our rights with hardware, while the latter is about software. Hardware is just easier for governments to regulate. When you try to regulate software, companies will do things like the deliberately-annoying cookie popups we got after GDPR/CCPA, because it's cheap to produce lots of bullshit to experiment with ways around those regulations.

ragnese 2y ago

Exactly. Even the people who complain about these things immediately get defensive when you call them out on their uses: "Well, I can't switch because what about my banking app?" or "Well, games don't count as software to me." or "It won't make any difference to the big tech companies if I'm the only one who switches, so why bother?"

lapcat 2y ago

> privacy-centric solutions are out there and relatively easy to find Really? Please name them. Over the past 10 or 15 years, I've never seen anything other than the iPhone/Android or Mac/Windows duopoly for sale in any retail store. I've never seen any advertising for other than those duopolies. The HN crowd may be aware of obscure options, but for the vast majority of consumers, they don't exist. And since we as developers make money catering to the vast majority of consumers, we're kind of stuck with the duopoly too, at least as far as our work is concerned.

regnull 2y ago
Here you go: https://us.starlabs.systems/ https://us.starlabs.systems/ Now, how many of you guys have this? Or anything like this? I bet 95% of the HN crowd happily uses iOS/Android daily.
- lapcat 2y ago
  I've never even heard of that before, and I'm terminally online. Anyway, desktop computers aren't really the main problem here. For example, Apple Macs offer vastly more personal freedom than Apple iPhones. If iPhones behaved like Macs in that respect, then we might not be having this debate. To the extent that Macs have been increasingly locked down over the past 15 years, it's mostly just copying the iPhone, porting the "features" over from one platform to the other.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  This is the first time I heard about it. Has anyone looked into their claims? Would love to buy an affordable Linux pad or a mini PC.
  - regnull 2y ago
    FWIW, I have no idea if this is any good. My point is, I found this after maybe 3 minutes searching. If we were to spend 30 minutes, we would definitely find something reasonable.

Ajedi32 2y ago

This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway. This is about your right to have control of your own property. You make a fair point though; the case does need to be made as to why this is a market failure and not just consumer choice working as expected. Why _do_ consumers tolerate manufacturers retaining ultimate control of consumer's property after the sale? It certainly doesn't seem to be that important to them. Maybe greater awareness of the issue would help somewhat?

klabb3 2y ago
> This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway. Agree fully. Don’t know why you’re being downvoted. I accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on me. It’s not that, but the right to repair, to tinker, to hack. Those things have brought us so much interesting wonderful things. My entire generation (millennial) has superior tech literacy to both those that came before and after (no shade to the older gen - some of you are better than us, but with millennials it’s so much more widespread than eg gen X). Many younger gens never use ”real” computers (only tablet & phone). The gilded age was an anomaly, and is over. > the case does need to be made as to why this is a market failure and not just consumer choice working as expected I swear this consumer choice navel gazing will be the death of innovation. The US is obsessed with this narrative, that the magic market hand will self-correct, without any justification or scrutiny. Yes, consumer choice is necessary, but not sufficient. Just look at the developments in tech over the last decade+. I don’t have the solution but anyone who’s not entirely lost in dogma should be able to see the failures.
- Ajedi32 2y ago
  Market failures do happen, so I'm not claiming consumer choice is the perfect solution in every case. But consumers aren't stupid either; if this _were_ a mainstream concern the market _would_ self-correct. But it hasn't self-corrected on this issue, because most consumers don't really care that much. So I think you have to carefully consider why that is before you start thinking you know what they want better than than they do and eliminating certain choices by government decree. There are costs to any regulation, and lots of possible unintended consequences. So even though I'm personally a strong advocate for user control and software freedom, I'm wary of acting without strong justification and careful consideration of the underlying reasons behind the status quo. > I accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on me. For what it's worth, I do think this issue has indirect effects on privacy. If you have ultimate control of the software on your device, you can use that control in ways that help protect your privacy. Otherwise you're limited to whatever protections the manufacturer decides to grant you. There are lots of similar positive possible downstream effects of software freedom, which is why I think this is an issue worth serious consideration despite my misgivings.

freedomben 2y ago

I have no data to back this up. So what follows is purely my personal opinion. I think the reason people don't care, is because they don't know. The average person either doesn't know or barely knows That anything deeper than what they see in the user interface is happening on their system. We humans are very much an out of sight out of mind type of creature. If we can't see it, it's hard for us to imagine that it exists.

Dalewyn 2y ago
People know, Facebook and Google getting crap for all their tracking is evidence enough. The reason people don't care is because digital freedom/privacy is largely irrelevant to most people's lives. You can't convince someone to care about something that doesn't affect their life, they're too busy for that.

_aavaa_ 2y ago

There is nothing inherent to the benefits that these companies tout that require them to lock us out of our own devices. What you are describing is not a tradeoff but a magnificent bribe. They bribe us with measly benefits in order to accept the deal that is incredibly favourable for them. See: https://reallifemag.com/the-magnificent-bribe/ https://reallifemag.com/the-magnificent-bribe/

chainingsolid 2y ago

I'd argue the general population doesn't even know this trade off exists (not helped by the pros being advertised to users and the cons purposely not mentioned). Even then the minority (us) shouldn't be stopped from doing what we want with our stuff just so some company can make more money.

fsflover 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20207348