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> People fall for scams all the time, and that doesn't change just because it's now "on a computer". But that's exactly the issue. You won't prevent someone fr
by AnthonyMouse 1y ago
> People fall for scams all the time, and that doesn't change just because it's now "on a computer".
But that's exactly the issue. You won't prevent someone from wiring money to Nigeria by restricting what apps they can install on their phone while allowing the official bank app which supports wire transfers.
If someone is willing to press any sequence of buttons a scammer tells them to then the only way to prevent them from doing something at the behest of the scammer is to prevent them from doing it at all.
But that's hardly practical, because you're going to, what? Prevent anyone from transferring money even for legitimate reasons? Prevent people from reading their own email or DMs so they can't give a scammer access to sensitive ones?
The alternatives are educating people to not fall for scams, or completely disenfranchising them so that they're not authorized to make any choices for themselves. What madness can it be that we could choose the second one for ordinary adults?
- Nursie 1y agoAdults would choose a locked-down, secure phone for themselves. Arguably they already do and the numbers wanting an open phone are relatively trivial and the market ends up the way it has. I do these days, happily, and I speak as someone who owned a Neo Freerunner and an N900. My phone is far too important as a usable, stable device to want to fuck around treating it as an open platform any more.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago> Arguably they already do and the numbers wanting an open phone are relatively trivial and the market ends up the way it has. The market is consolidated into Apple and Google and neither of them actually offers this. Taking away everyone's choices and then saying "look how few people are choosing the thing that isn't available" is a bit of a farce.
- Nursie 1y agoIt was not always this way though, there were other choices. Nobody cared, so they went away.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoAndroid was sold as being "open" and at first it mostly was, so the people who wanted that got an Android device and everything else disappeared. Then Google closed Android over time, at first in subtle ways that weren't immediately obvious and now they're just telling everyone to DIAF. But by then the alternatives were gone. I mean it seems like your argument is "nobody wants this thing that people keep getting mad that nobody offers". Obviously people want it; otherwise who are all of these people?
- Nursie 1y ago> Obviously people want it; otherwise who are all of these people? Half a dozen geeks on HN do not a market make.
- AnthonyMouse 1y agoThere are something like 50 million people in the world whose occupation is software developer. Hundreds of millions, maybe billions, who are some other kind of engineer or scientist or teacher or just curious enough to want to learn things or stubborn enough to not want someone else taking away their choices. Every kid should have a device that lets them experiment rather than one that locks in them in a cage -- it's not like they're doing banking or dealing with national secrets to begin with. That market is half the world. It's not small.
- Nursie 1y agoI disagree. There’s nowhere near a billion who give a crap, if there were that many it would be a market that is served and could be highly profitable. As it is there have always been phones that are open to greater or lesser extent and they have always been market failures, even among geeks.