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Couldn't you make that argument for literally any anticompetitive practice? Like in the 1990s: "Microsoft isn't making an OS for people that want to try differe
by sigmar 2y ago
Couldn't you make that argument for literally any anticompetitive practice? Like in the 1990s: "Microsoft isn't making an OS for people that want to try different browsers"
- liquid_thyme 2y agoYes, you could. It's indeed troubling to see this mindset on HN. We have an overflow of professional "explainers" these days, we need more doers and fighters.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoThe "hackers" grew up and made money. Don't rock the boat!
- frollogaston 2y agoIf you want to do and fight, use Linux. Apple made their intentions clear decades ago.
- _aavaa_ 2y agoBetter than voting with your wallet is voting with your vote and getting regulations in place.
- macrocosmos 2y agoYou state that as if it is fact despite there being no evidence to support that viewpoint.
- frollogaston 2y agoPlease don't "source?" this, it's just a viewpoint.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- macrocosmos 2y agoWe’re in agreement that it is a viewpoint. I think it’s bad for productive conversation to state viewpoints as absolute facts that everyone else holds.
- frollogaston 2y agoThen I'm guilty of this too.
- _aavaa_ 2y agoEmphasizing voting with your wallet means those with the most money dictate how things work. Google and Apple vote with their wallet all the time. When they’re buying competitors, buying preferential treatment for each other, and buying law makers and regulators. We aren’t going to out bid them on any of these things. We have to make it illegal, and vote in people who will enforce the laws.
- shakna 2y agoIs not the EU's regulations largely successful? Some have underestimated maliscious compliance, but for most.
- nickff 2y agoIt depends on how you define success; the EU has certainly managed to achieve a great deal of standardization and compliance, at the cost of rate of progress and business model innovation. You might think this is a worthwhile trade off, but people differ in their priorities.
- shakna 2y agoFewer deaths, higher quality of life, more job security. Seems like for the average person, the trade off is well worth it.
- _aavaa_ 2y ago> business model innovation The OpenAI grift, the Facebook & Google stalking advertising, the Uber “independent contractors”, and the Amazon two-for of workers pissing in bottles and squeezing your suppliers so prices rise everywhere. Yes, what a loss for the EU.
- realusername 2y agoCitations needed. The DSA never applied to a single EU company and GDPR is the bare minimum on user privacy. And by the time the EU attempted any of those, we already had the duopoly and the competition was already dead.
- Defletter 2y ago> at the cost of rate of progress and business model innovation That's a pretty massive claim. Do you have any examples of this?
- frollogaston 2y agoTheir entire tech sector compared to the US or China
- liquid_thyme 2y agoSure, but I hope you recognize that it is possible to do two things at once. Corporations have pressure points and there are a myriad of ways to contribute to the overall progress that each one wants to see for themselves.
- lanyard-textile 2y agoOh whatever :P Don’t be condescending about a mindset you don’t experience yourself. I ran debian as my daily driver for like half my life; now I’m on mac and never have to worry about my friggin wifi driver.
- dingnuts 2y agoI haven't had a problem with my Wi-Fi in Linux since 2006, what are you on about?
- rasmus-kirk 2y agoYeah, I'm running PopOS woth minimal issues and have been doing so for 5 years. The only issues I have is that they built it on a jank stack of Gnome, but they're fixing that at this moment. It sounds like a lot of the "I used to use Linux, but nothing worked" crowd are either previous Arch-users (no shit you had to do everything manually) or older folks.
- underdeserver 2y agoYou're squarely in the minority, mate.
- kraf 2y agoNah he's not. Stuff has been pretty stable, impressively so. Especially if you keep to certain hardware options which Apple users also accept.
- Defletter 2y agoCongrats? I've personally experienced driver issues on my laptop and desktop, both from the hardware being too new for the kernel (or at least the version being used by that distro), within the past two years. And this is LMDE, not some fringe one-man fork.
- Aachen 2y agoIf we want to pile anecdotes, it just works for me as well. The most recent driver problem I had was Windows, needed to preload something during the installer to get it to recognise hard drives in proxmox working if I remember correctly, and that's not even speaking of printer problems on Windows compared to the seamless integration they now seem to have on Debian (or is my desktop environment responsible for that? Not sure, I'm not super deep into Linux stuff)
- maccard 2y agoIf you want an alternative, android exists. I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android. Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in.
- liquid_thyme 2y ago>I actively want a tightly integrated system that I know works well together. I don’t want to worry “does this device really work with this other device, even if it says it’s compatible” which was a constant source of issues I had on Android. Yeah, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s >Your desire for Apple to become an open system removes my choice to opt into a closed ecosystem, when you already have an open ecosystem to play in. Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it.
- maccard 2y agoI don’t think this comment is in good faith. I gave you a reasonable viewpoint and you just dunked on me with snark. >, I mean Linux is an abject failure, nothing ever works or runs on it. Nobody needs open data formats or open protocols for interoperability. Binary blobs for the win! /s I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said I actively choose a “more closed” ecosystem. Linux has similar problems IMO - “I want to buy a GPU” shouldn’t come with trying to figure out whether the device drivers will actually work, to me. If you want that, you have that choice. > Don't worry, it's easy to lock down any open system and we can give you that should you desire it. Only within the constraints of what you want which is that everything should adhere to a standard and be interoperable. Which, again, as I said you can have on android. Go buy a pixel phone, and a samsung watch and see how good the experience is. I’ll say this again - there are open ecosystem alternatives for you out there, in android. Some people, even technical people, are ok with a smaller ecosystem knowing that there is lock in. If you don’t want that, don’t use it. But if you push your choices on me, you restrict my options and remove my preferred platform to have one more platform you want
- sneak 2y agoNot any anticompetitive practice, just the ones that allow in competitors who have different security models for human/computer interaction. Imagine if you could swap out Siri for Alexa. The privacy guarantees are nothing alike. People buy iPhones because they prohibit unsafe choices.
- eddieroger 2y agoUnlike Microsoft of the 90s, there are alternative mobile operating systems that are actually competing with iOS and Apple, so the argument isn't the same. In fact, people point out that iOS doesn't have majority share when you look at global usage, and only has a small majority when you look at the US. Microsoft's next nearest OS competitor didn't make a browser, and a lot more than half of computer users were using Windows.
- wat10000 2y agoMaking your own products interoperate better than competitors' products is pretty typical and I don't think it rises to the level of "anticompetitive practice." If you don't like it (and I can totally understand why), there are numerous other smartphone makers out there with products that allow better integration with these watches and you're free to buy one. MS didn't get into trouble because they went after competing browsers, they got into trouble for doing that while also having a monopoly on PC OSes. Apple doesn't have anything like a monopoly in this market (their US market share is about 50%, worldwide is around 28%).
- Osiris 2y agoMicrosoft absolutely got in trouble for purposefully making other Office suites not work correctly on Windows, for using private Windows APIs in Office that other companies didn't have access to, etc. If Apple makes a watch that can receive and send iMessages then there is no reason any other device shouldn't be able to use the same APIs that Apple uses. It absolutely creates a system where competitors literally cannot compete with the same features.
- wat10000 2y agoThey got in trouble for doing that stuff while having a monopoly on PC OSes. Using private stuff to give your own products an advantage is (legally) fine if you're not leveraging a monopoly to do it.
- conception 2y agoAnd really, these days that’s only illegal if it makes things more expensive for consumers.
- frollogaston 2y agoI honestly don't care about Microsoft bundling a browser. The real problem was that they intentionally broke web standards to push websites to "work best on Internet Explorer," so even those who chose not to use Windows were caught up in it. Whereas, Android users aren't affected by what Apple does here. They still bundle Edge, and keep setting it to default. But idc, it's just one of 1000 reasons I don't use Windows.
- apatheticonion 2y agoApple do this too with their products - but in more subtle ways. For instance, try to play a video game on MacOS. While Vulkan is available on every playform, it's not available on MacOS or iOS despite the fact that it would take an engineer at Apple a weekend to implement (figuritively speaking). Apple are also killing off OpenGL support for MacOS. Generally, Apple deliberately build a "dependence ecosystem" for their consumers on the product side while also actively preventing engineers from using portable technologies on their platforms. The fact that MacOS is as open as it currently is is a miracle and I am sure executives hate that. They create the fastest and most ergonomic mobile hardware on Earth but, outside of web browsing, video editing and some engineering workloads, there's very little you can actually do on it.
- frollogaston 2y agoOh yeah, Mac video games sorta don't exist. The dev can jump through all those hoops and still have random OS updates break it constantly. Almost as bad just for regular apps. Re executives being mad: The thing is, they make money off Mac hardware, and even then its profits are dwarfed by iPhone and iPhone accessories. Which are of course locked down.
- adhamsalama 2y agoIsn't the WebKit the only allowed browser engine on iOS?
- frollogaston 2y agoYes. Essentially Safari is the only iOS browser. Ironically, this is the only thing stopping a Chrome web monopoly.
- crazygringo 2y agoOnly if they're a monopoly. In the 1990's, Microsoft Windows had over 90% of operating system market share. They were a monopoly. iPhones are only 58% versus Android in the US right now. That's nowhere close to monopoly. Globally Android has 71%. Android is thriving. With Windows, you didn't have a choice. With iOS and Android, you have choice.
- clemiclemen 2y agoAt which point does a monopoly becomes a monopoly? There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market.
- crazygringo 2y ago> At which point does a monopoly becomes a monopoly? It's generally in the 70-90% range. Right now, it's much easier to argue that Android has a global monopoly. > There is no need to have a "clear" monopoly like Windows in 1990's to abuse your power and presence in the market. Well it depends what you mean by "abuse". I mean, even small companies can "abuse" their customers by not building the interoperability their customers want. But we generally prioritize individual freedom, that private businesses ought to have free choice in what they work with or don't. That's important. That only becomes a problem when consumers aren't able to switch to a competitor. I.e. when there is a monopoly provider. I.e. which controls 70-90%+ of the market.
- dvngnt_ 2y agowe're getting close then in usa https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/us-smartphone-market-share/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/us-smartphone-... https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-teens-dread-the-green-text-bubble-11641618009 https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https://www.wsj.com...
- crazygringo 2y ago
- ubermonkey 2y agoWell, no, at least not honestly, because in the 1990s Microsoft was sitting on a true monopoly. Apple is one of several (3, at least) players in desktop computing, and one of two in mobile. Nobody has the kind of power Redmond wielded now. And that's a key part of the discussion.