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> 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 y

by pdonis 21d 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 19d 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 19d 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.
  - AnthonyMouse 16d ago
    > 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. Paying for an ad blocker and paying for a device that doesn't ban ad blockers are two different things. > 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 Which is all the more reason ordinary people should want devices that give them the advantage in the arms race, in turn helping to disadvantage that business model. > 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 It would require them to pay for the apps that aren't sustainable as open source, e.g. medical device apps or similar. > Or, alternatively, users could simply stop buying devices that are locked down, and buy open ones instead. Which in turn brings us back to antitrust, since the incumbent platforms are using things like attestation to make it so your bank app doesn't run on a competing device.

by pdonis 21d ago

AnthonyMouse 19d 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 19d 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.
- AnthonyMouse 16d ago
  > 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. Paying for an ad blocker and paying for a device that doesn't ban ad blockers are two different things. > 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 Which is all the more reason ordinary people should want devices that give them the advantage in the arms race, in turn helping to disadvantage that business model. > 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 It would require them to pay for the apps that aren't sustainable as open source, e.g. medical device apps or similar. > Or, alternatively, users could simply stop buying devices that are locked down, and buy open ones instead. Which in turn brings us back to antitrust, since the incumbent platforms are using things like attestation to make it so your bank app doesn't run on a competing device.