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> To most people, "general purpose computing" just means their computer (or more likely their phone, these days) can run any app they want it to run. That's th

> To most people, "general purpose computing" just means their computer (or more likely their phone, these days) can run any app they want it to run. That's the same definition as the one where developers have control over their devices, because that's necessary for those apps to exist and be used even if you're not the author of them. Consider what most phone apps these day are. The vast majority are just a front end to a web endpoint and the app itself could just as well have been a browser. Nobody actually needs those to be apps. Meanwhile the apps people would actually want are things like "ad blocker that blocks the ads in other apps" which are precisely what the war on general purpose computing has deprived people of. Because the scummy ad-laden app approved by the platform has to be "protected" from the "untrusted" open source ad blocker. Likewise apps that back up the data in other apps or otherwise create competition for the platform's cloud services, competing browser engines that could properly support PWAs so that the "should have been a web page" apps can actually be a web page, etc. Megacorps that want to lead ordinary people down the garden path may convince some of them that this is "for their own good", but convincing unsophisticated people that something is in their own interest is hardly the same as that thing actually being in their own interest.

pdonis 19d ago
> That's the same definition as the one where developers have control over their devices, because that's necessary for those apps to exist and be used even if you're not the author of them. Developers need full control over their own devices to develop apps. But they don't need users to have such control. Indeed, for most users to have such control would be unsafe, since they don't know what to do with it anyway. > the apps people would actually want are things like "ad blocker that blocks the ads in other apps" How many people would actually pay for such an app? My guess is, not enough to matter. For that matter, how many people even understand that it's possible to have such apps on their phone? Again, my guess is, not enough to matter. In other words, the point is not that Searls' and Doctorow's definitions are "wrong". The point is that ordinary users simply do not understand what the issue is with that framing. > convincing unsophisticated people that something is in their own interest is hardly the same as that thing actually being in their own interest. Of course not. But convincing them what actually is in their own interest--and that what the megacorps are trying to sell them is not--requires speaking the users' language. And I don't see that Doctorow's framing of the issue as a "war on general purpose computing" has helped at all with that.
- AnthonyMouse 18d ago
  > Developers need full control over their own devices to develop apps. But they don't need users to have such control. But they do need that control. Otherwise apps can't do the things they want them to do, like blocking ads in other apps, because doing those things is prohibited by the platform vendor. > How many people would actually pay for such an app? Why is that even relevant? The question is if someone would make that app, so that ordinary people would have access to it. And we see that this is what happens when it isn't inhibited, e.g. people create plugins like uBlock for browsers. > But convincing them what actually is in their own interest--and that what the megacorps are trying to sell them is not--requires speaking the users' language. At which point you're making an argument about framing rather than one about the actual thing which is necessary, i.e. for the user to not be denied control over their own device.
  - pdonis 17d ago
    > Why is that even relevant? Because breaking the stranglehold that the tech megacorps currently have over devices is not going to be cheap. In the end, if users won't pay for it to happen, it won't happen. > the actual thing which is necessary, i.e. for the user to not be denied control over their own device. My point is that as things currently stand, users don't care about this. To them their device is not a computer they should control. It's just an appliance. They have no clue what "general purpose computing" means or why they should want it (to the extent they should) on their devices. Framing it as "we'd like to give you ad blocking apps but the platform vendors won't let us" might be an improvement, but I'm not sure even about that. Ads vs. ad blocking is a perpetual arms race, and it will continue as long as the ad supported business model is the primary one the tech megacorps use, and the incentives that lead the tech megacorps to use that business model in the first place are also the ones that lead them to lock down what apps on their platforms can do. The real solution, as the last statement suggests, is to do away with the ad supported business model. But that would require users to be willing to pay for apps that they use; and right now, it seems like most users won't. They've been conditioned for at least a couple of decades now that everything they use on their devices, like everything they use on the web, should be "free". And since those things aren't actually free, it costs a lot of resources to provide them, they have to be paid for somehow. Or, alternatively, users could simply stop buying devices that are locked down, and buy open ones instead. There are ways to do that--but they're outliers, and I don't see how that's going to change any time soon.

pdonis 19d ago

> That's the same definition as the one where developers have control over their devices, because that's necessary for those apps to exist and be used even if you're not the author of them. Developers need full control over their own devices to develop apps. But they don't need users to have such control. Indeed, for most users to have such control would be unsafe, since they don't know what to do with it anyway. > the apps people would actually want are things like "ad blocker that blocks the ads in other apps" How many people would actually pay for such an app? My guess is, not enough to matter. For that matter, how many people even understand that it's possible to have such apps on their phone? Again, my guess is, not enough to matter. In other words, the point is not that Searls' and Doctorow's definitions are "wrong". The point is that ordinary users simply do not understand what the issue is with that framing. > convincing unsophisticated people that something is in their own interest is hardly the same as that thing actually being in their own interest. Of course not. But convincing them what actually is in their own interest--and that what the megacorps are trying to sell them is not--requires speaking the users' language. And I don't see that Doctorow's framing of the issue as a "war on general purpose computing" has helped at all with that.

AnthonyMouse 18d ago
> Developers need full control over their own devices to develop apps. But they don't need users to have such control. But they do need that control. Otherwise apps can't do the things they want them to do, like blocking ads in other apps, because doing those things is prohibited by the platform vendor. > How many people would actually pay for such an app? Why is that even relevant? The question is if someone would make that app, so that ordinary people would have access to it. And we see that this is what happens when it isn't inhibited, e.g. people create plugins like uBlock for browsers. > But convincing them what actually is in their own interest--and that what the megacorps are trying to sell them is not--requires speaking the users' language. At which point you're making an argument about framing rather than one about the actual thing which is necessary, i.e. for the user to not be denied control over their own device.
- pdonis 17d ago
  > Why is that even relevant? Because breaking the stranglehold that the tech megacorps currently have over devices is not going to be cheap. In the end, if users won't pay for it to happen, it won't happen. > the actual thing which is necessary, i.e. for the user to not be denied control over their own device. My point is that as things currently stand, users don't care about this. To them their device is not a computer they should control. It's just an appliance. They have no clue what "general purpose computing" means or why they should want it (to the extent they should) on their devices. Framing it as "we'd like to give you ad blocking apps but the platform vendors won't let us" might be an improvement, but I'm not sure even about that. Ads vs. ad blocking is a perpetual arms race, and it will continue as long as the ad supported business model is the primary one the tech megacorps use, and the incentives that lead the tech megacorps to use that business model in the first place are also the ones that lead them to lock down what apps on their platforms can do. The real solution, as the last statement suggests, is to do away with the ad supported business model. But that would require users to be willing to pay for apps that they use; and right now, it seems like most users won't. They've been conditioned for at least a couple of decades now that everything they use on their devices, like everything they use on the web, should be "free". And since those things aren't actually free, it costs a lot of resources to provide them, they have to be paid for somehow. Or, alternatively, users could simply stop buying devices that are locked down, and buy open ones instead. There are ways to do that--but they're outliers, and I don't see how that's going to change any time soon.