15 ms·

I Still Don't Want To Be Part of Your Fucking Ecosystem

267 points by edent 13y ago

yuvadam 13y ago
Cory Doctorow calls it "the war on general-purpose computing" and it's a pretty damn good read [1] (or talk [2]). [1] - http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg
- rimantas 13y ago
  Don't you think that it is a stupid name? Why should it be a zero-sum game? Also, I still do eat with spoon, fork and a knife, but I do not call that "war on spork".
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    > Also, I still do eat with spoon, fork and a knife, but I do not call that "war on spork". Because the barrier to entry to creating your own fork, should Big Cutlery™ decide they want to prevent your access to one, is very low.
    - untothebreach 13y ago
      I wish I could upvote you twice...once for your point, and again for "Big Cutlery"
    - rimantas 13y ago
      You miss the point. If I am some huge player who decides to produce tablets, how does that make me at war with someone else producing computers? Or are those producing utensils at war with Victorinox? So who is actively trying to hurt "general computing" devices? And by this I mean not "producing limited computing devices" but active and deliberate actions against general computing. Or shall we all close our eyes and pretend that many of those general computing devices never saw general computing in their lives? Some are glorified typewriters, some are facebook and email devices, some are game machines. Where does this tunnel vision that anyone working with something with CPU inside should be interested in general computing?
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Bad analogy. Your utensils don't prohibit you from eating certain foods because they've chosen not to support them. Come to think, that's pretty hilarious actually.
    - robinh 13y ago
      Forkenheit 451.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - stephencanon 13y ago
      Not arguing with the basic point, but I find it rather humorous that forks essententially do prevent you from eating soup because they've chosen not to (literally) support it. You need to use a different device to consume that media.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        Yup, but on the other hand no one calls a fork "general-purpose kitchen utensil".
      - codelap 13y ago
        Not quite, forks are ill suited to the job of consuming many soups. This is more akin to how the Samsung watch is ill suited to host a Super Bowl party. All devices cannot be all things, nor should they be, and this has nothing to do with content licences.
      - pferde 13y ago
        No, you can still eat your soup with a fork. It will work. Nobody will stop you. It will just be very ineffective, and your soup will get cold long before you finish it.
      - Kluny 13y ago
        Ok, it's time to stop talking about cutlery, everyone in this thread.
  - pjc50 13y ago
    The analogy would be having to pick one of spoon, fork, or knife for eating a whole meal with. Soup and steak. In this dystopia, manufacturing sporks is banned as patent infringement and filing an edge and some tines into your spoon is a DMCA violation.
    - talmand 13y ago
      Don't forget there will have to be some type of law forcing you to purchase a spoon as it is unfair to spoon manufacturers that you don't require a utensil at all to consume soup from an easily lifted bowl. Maybe force all bowls to be too big and heavy to easily lift?
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    There is literally a movement to ban pointed kitchen knives in England. https://www.google.com/search?q=pointed+knives+uk+ban https://www.google.com/search?q=pointed+knives+uk+ban
    - talmand 13y ago
      Wait, you mean all my jokes about banning guns just leads to increased stabbings so they'll eventually have to ban knives has come true? Blimey!
    - phaemon 13y ago
      There literally isn't. There's literally one report from 2005 from one A&E (ER) dept that suggested it would be a good idea. Others disagreed.
Fuxy 13y ago
I think the smart TV is inherently a lock in platform like the old phone market use to be when Nokia phones were all the rage. If the smart TV runs android I'm ok with it the apps are already there but if anything else i would rather have the "smart" part outside my TV and just get a regular old TV. Say for instance using XBMC I know it's a lot less likely the apps will get out of date or I'm going to be forced by some vendors whims to use certain service because they need to increase their profit margins.
techsupporter 13y ago
I'm really beginning to think that views like this (which I share) are in the minority, at least so far as the "making astounding quantities of money" crowd are concerned. Even downloading an MP3 from Amazon--a process that used to just result in an MP3 link being presented after payment--needs a client and wants to sync to the cloud. Vendor lock-in has been a thing for as long as there have been computers, it's just that our interconnectedness has made it even more visible and incredibly more lucrative.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  Doanloading an MP3 from amazon doesn't require a client. It does sync to the cloud, but it doesn't require a client. I guess I don't see the vendor lock-in there?
  - grey-area 13y ago
    I just tried a few days ago. They heavily promote their client and I couldn't find a link to just download the MP3s.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      I started my post with: Sign into Amazon. Hit this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/ays https://www.amazon.com/gp/ays View->View By Type->Music->Amazon MP3 But then tried to actually download my music or Kindle books. You're right. It's actually quite difficult to. Not pleasant. EDIT: Apparently I'm a dolt; see /u/thaumasiotes's response below.
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        Well, come on. You could at least go the the pages that offer the functionality you want. Hit "Manage Your Kindle" from the "Your account" dropdown and download Kindle books to your heart's content; they really couldn't make that any easier. You'd download your music through "Your Cloud Player", just like Amazon tells you to do when you buy it. Alternatively, your order history for any item will include the relevant link.
brador 13y ago
Spread information. Just like you're doing with this article. Eventually, enough decisions will be made based on that information, that was previously unknown or hidden, that companies will change their practises.
girvo 13y ago
As crazy as this sounds... I've got no problems with being in an "ecosystem" as long as it can be run on any device. See Kindle for a perfect example -- I have it on my iPhone, iPad, desktop and my PaperWhite. Perfect. Or Netflix: runs on everything. But if your "ecosystem" is limited to particular devices (see: iMessage, or the OP) then it may as well not exist as far as I'm concerned. Hell, even Apple knew iTunes needed to run on Windows to matter. Eventually, anyway.
- odonnellryan 13y ago
  I think it's fine, but I also think some middleground has to be taken so that we aren't slowly tied into a "ecosystem." The example I like is Netflix on Linux. Now, boredom will find a way - and I use Wine and FireFox - but, does it really have to be like that? I understand Linux is (without looking it up) something like 1% of the desktop market. But really... why should that matter? I know, business..but it's a consumer product. When I'm trying to look through Netflix's website to see what's supported, all I can find is them trying to sell me proprietary devices. I don't mind so much, because I still like Netflix.
  - dan1234 13y ago
    It comes down to cost. It's cheaper for Netflix to have you use their box than it is for them to develop & support a Linux client for the relatively small user base. Licensing restrictions and other politics likely prevent them from accepting open source clients, even if they wanted to.
  - davexunit 13y ago
    GNU/Linux users are not in their business interests. And you can't fix that problem because the software is proprietary. The only acceptable option is to stop using Netflix.
    - odonnellryan 13y ago
      Okay - I understand. And use what, though? Pirate Bay? Maybe launch a startup that has only public-domain videos to start? There has to be a good solution.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
This is one of the reasons why Net Neutrality is so important. Everybody and their brother wants to lock you in to their platform (whether it's a phone or an ISP) then split, differentiate, and bundle the product in so many complex ways you'll be lucky if you even understand what you're purchasing. Cell phone companies have already done this. Airlines as well. So have insurance companies. They make money by farming the walled garden in such a way as to make it look like you have increased choices, but, mirabile dictu, all the choices end up with you paying more money each month. Enough is enough.
- rrorty 13y ago
  It's always sad to see Libertarians sacrificing their principles as soon as it involves a slight inconvenience to themselves. Net Neutrality means handing control of the internet to the government. Regulatory capture and special interests will ensure any Net Neutrality legislation is an unworkable mess that sets investment in the internet back decades. For video things would be even worse. Do you want Congress telling Amazon which video formats they have to use, and which formats the devices they sell must support? When Amazon doesn't want to support some proprietary standard that congress members got bribed to pick then the thugs with guns will turn up at Amazon HQ and Amazon will be unable to defend themselves. We know that markets are inherently self-correcting, we just need to have patience.
  - p8952 13y ago
    Net Neutrality can be supported and enforced without government intervention though.
  - DanielBMarkham 13y ago
    Whoa horsey! Nobody's asking for regulations here. I think in a digital age, "Product Definition" benefits everybody in the marketplace, and there's no reason we can't come together on that, whether by industry association or legal definition. No regulators or laws necessary. I simply need to know when I'm buying an "apple" that I get a red thing that's somewhat round and good to eat -- all without spending 3 years studying the nuances of apple law. That's good for everybody because it encourages and supports a free and open market. This is what we want, no? I'm not asking for a bureaucrat, or an agency. I just want bins in the market where vendors put stuff where I can easily tell what the thing is, that's all.
aet 13y ago
Roku
PaulHoule 13y ago
This reminds me of the bad old days. Around 1980 you'd buy an Apple ][ or a TRS-80 or a Commodore VIC and they all were incompatible, although most of them still had Micro$oft BASIC.
- muyuu 13y ago
  There were better justifications back then though. Stuff ran on completely different hardware and layers of abstraction weren't really workable. Some of the BASIC was more or less compatible but then again most stuff was machine code and BASIC was usually just the OS's terminal and bootloader of sorts. One could not reasonably expect the same software to work unchanged on a MOS 6502 based computer like the VIC or the Apple ][ and in a Z80 based computer like the TRS-80. And there were many more differences at the hardware and ROM-kernel level that made cross-platform software largely unworkable.
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  "...most of them still had Micro$oft BASIC" Behold the genius of Bill. Also of note, I first learned programming in QBASIC. And by programming I mean dozens of GOTO loops.
- mikecane 13y ago
  And yet with a modem and comm software, they could all connect to online services -- The Source, CompuServe, BBSes.
- pekk 13y ago
  Apple kept the bad old days alive with its own intentionally locked-in ecosystem. Maybe if they had failed more spectacularly in the 90s then perhaps today every company wouldn't be using iPhone lockin as a goal to aspire to.
nhangen 13y ago
This article is a misguided attempt to bemoan Panasonic for not enabling Amazon Prime video on their devices, which really has nothing to do with ecosystems and more to do with inferior technology and/or poor pre-purchase research. I don't view Prime Video as an ecosystem but more as an added value type of thing. Beyond that, it's opt-in, therefore not limiting. If the OP wanted Prime Video on their TV they should have purchased a TV that offered it, or buy a box that does it as an add-on.
- chewxy 13y ago
  Is that not rather the point of the post? I read it as Panasonic is trying to enforce its own ecosystem. It's not playing well with Amazon's ecosystem. Amazon's ecosystem doesn't play well with Android either (which to me is rather surprising, given Amazon has Kindle on Android)
- justincormack 13y ago
  Prime Video did not exist when the OP bought his TV.
  - nhangen 13y ago
    So he's expecting Panasonic to upgrade the software to support it? I don't see how you can blame Panasonic for not having something that didn't exist when the TV was made. I'm not a Panasonic fan, but I would guess they a) can't afford to add Prime and/or b) are trying to offer what they can in place of it.
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Or buy an HDMi cable.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  The fact that you have to have some custom client (I don't care how thin it is) to get interop means it is an ecosystem. There are business reasons to avoid interop (it costs money, it removes branding opportunities, blah blah blah), but let's not pretend they are anything else.
scrittler 13y ago
They aren't ecosystems - they're biospheres. They look like a functional system but by operating independently of external forces they stagnate quickly.
Qworg 13y ago
There is a misalignment of incentives. You want to be able to consume X on any Y. Companies want to sell you X on the expectation that you've bought their Y. Given that they've already been extremely successful doing this, X is only available on their Y. Why should they change?
- Fuxy 13y ago
  Because if they do they might just create another extremely profitable market place. Remember when all phones expected you to use their own proprietary OS with their own proprietary apps and developers had to make apps for every brand and model separately? That's vendor lockin taken to such an extreme that people can't even be bother to make apps anymore. Plus these apps are quickly going to become obsolete or outdated base what developer can be bothered to keep up with all that crap. Same logic applies just this time it's not phones it's smart TV's.
  - Qworg 13y ago
    Except that Apple is still making money hand over fist with a proprietary OS with their own proprietary apps, happily built by people who aren't Apple employees for 70% of their value. Where does the profit in the new marketplace come from?
    - Fuxy 13y ago
      Apple was the first to implement the concept properly before android caught up so they had a head start. The combination of excellent implementation of a touchscreen in the phone (it was done multiple times before but every other implementation sucked) and the combination of that with a proper app store (by today's standards) gave them the push necessary. Notice it wasn't any of the regular players at the time that took it in the right direction but a no name in the phone industry. Everybody else was too busy fighting each other instead of innovating. The profit is where it gets a bit odd since most likely the only profit the manufacturer of the TV gets is the price of the TV and maybe some bonuses from the companies whose app get installed by default on the TV. No different then a laptop now. The TV may become popular because of its great flexibility app wise but the bulk of the profits will be earned by software companies distributing the apps through adverts or by charging for the app.
davexunit 13y ago
The author is mixing together several problems here. 1) Amazon bundling a video service with their free shipping program. 2) Amazon's proprietary software locking in you into whatever platforms that are in their business interests. 3) Panasonic's proprietary TV platform that people can't be bothered to develop for. 4) Digital Restrictions Management that prevents one from downloading a movie via Amazon Prime and playing it in any other video player on any other platform. This is just the usual awful situation when you rely on proprietary software. Stop using Amazon Prime to watch videos. Write to them about the problems you have. I recently wrote to Audible because their ebooks come with DRM and cannot be played on GNU/Linux using Free Software.
- taybin 13y ago
  Did you get a response? The author mentions that he wrote to Panasonic and Amazon and was basically brushed off.
  - davexunit 13y ago
    Yeah, not exactly a satisfactory one, though. Just something along the lines of "We have sent your request to remove DRM to our audio team. We value your feedback." It was a nice way of saying that mail has been forwarded to the audio team to throw in the bin. Still, better than being ignored outright.
    - bowlich 13y ago
      Demand a refund. My girlfriend ran into this problem (we're pretty much a Linux household). Just could not get the audible books to run on Ubuntu and I wasn't willing to spend the time hunting around for a way to get around it. Fortunately, Audible was pretty gracious about the refund.
      - davexunit 13y ago
        Are you me? That's the exact problem my girlfriend and I had and she did receive a refund.
josephlord 13y ago
I used to do business development work at Sony bringing content services onto the TVs although this is a few years ago now. It is complicated and messy and there are many aspects both technical and commercial[0] that can cause services not to be available. Lovefilm were one of the most flexible and adaptable service providers although I don't know the extent to which this still applies with Amazon. I don't blame Panasonic for not supporting Flash/Silverlight in the TV. Adopting either of these is likely to require unpleasant licensing terms AND opaque binary blobs into the TV software. On the service provider side they cannot just drop the security measures (DRM or other security measures) as that would likely be breaching their own licenses from the content owners (film companies). If not supporting a major recognised DRM approach it can be a real sticking block. [0] Including placement, branding, design and obviously any revenue share arrangements.
jotm 13y ago
The main problem is that most consumers don't really care about openness, functionality and anything that requires a bit of brain power to understand. They get a TV, smartphone, PC - it works, cool. That feature is missing - oh, shucks, whatcha gonna do? It was probably too hard to implement anyway, right? Which is why ecosystems exist - once people learn how to use that one simple system, they'll tend to buy stuff from the same company for convenience's sake. Most poeple don't want to figure out how to install apps, why this web page isn't displaying correctly, or how to make those mp3 files smaller.
Touche 13y ago
While I agree with his point about ecosystems (I strongly avoid them), these examples are a bit weak. Android is not an "open standard", it's a code-dumped open source touch OS controlled by 1 company. Amazon should make an Android app, but by doing so they are contributing to an ecosystem. What's not widely known is that, unlike smartphones, HTML5 is the dominant platform for TV-based apps. That's why every TV has Netflix, not because Netflix is employing an army of engineers to make a new app for each TV model. However, TV based apps are still apps that are installed and controlled by the TV vendor. Which means Amazon has to strike a deal with Panasonic to get their generic HTML5 app on Panasonic TVs. If HTML5 DRM (which, to clarify, I am opposed to) becomes a standard this whole mess could be avoided and Amazon could serve their videos on any TV with a modern browser.
- danieldk 13y ago
  While I agree with his point about ecosystems (I strongly avoid them), these examples are a bit weak. Android is not an "open standard", it's a code-dumped open source touch OS controlled by 1 company. Evenmore, Android doesn't support standards very well. E.g., the default IMAP mail client didn't (probably still doesn't) have IDLE support, it doesn't have CardDAV/CalDAV support (luckily, there are external connectors), and XMPP federation is gone, so you can only talk with your Hangouts buddies via Hangouts. The 'problem' is that from a user's perspective Android is great. The integration with the Google ecosystem in Android is impressive. And given that many westeners already have GMail et al., Android provides a great and smooth out of the box experience. So, there is little reason to switch, as long as the ads don't become to intrusive.
dankoss 13y ago
The problem here isn't ecosystems, it's standards. Standards that allow us to move MP3s, emails, books, etc. between providers. I'd like to believe that HTML5 will eventually be the standard for video delivery, but this may never happen. There's no incentive to standardize streaming content delivery because it would increase competition and take power away from the corporations.
logicallee 13y ago
I don't mind being part of your ecosystem as long as I'm part of your family, you care for my needs, think about me, and the whole company is built around my lifestyle and serves it really well leaving not much to be desired. The loss in interoperability is worth it in this case. If you're not going to be the above, then act like a pipe-able Unix process.
tootie 13y ago
Amazon most definitely has an android app for instance video. That's how it runs on Kindle Fire devices. They just don't approve it (or enable it to work) on non-Kindle devices. You can find leaked apk files on various forums, but they don't fit most screens and crash frequently. On the flip side, you can stream movies via their website in Firefox for Android which still supports Flash.
far33d 13y ago
It's not clear that Amazon has 100% control over how they distribute video. Rights holders are pretty controlling about DRM, distribution, and what devices can use their content. I don't know anything about the specific deals here, but I wouldn't be surprised if an open Amazon Instant Video was an Amazon Instant Video without very much content you'd care about.
josinalvo 13y ago
maybe it would be good to have some sort of (general) index of compatibility for consumer products. A one-number thing. "how likely this product is to lock you out of something good". If this information is valuable (and I think it is!) even small fluctuations on the index could push a given product up.
peligoose 13y ago
I'm a fan of ecosystems.
Tloewald 13y ago
The basic issue is lock-in. Ideally we'd have no lock-in, but that's a benefit balanced against other benefits (e.g. having a good UI, ease of setup and maintenance, enough scope for vendors to make money and stay in business). In practice this means we tolerate a certain amount of lock-in for other benefits. But, the problem comes when everyone thinks that they can be the guy with the tolerable lock-in. Use MY video service -- anywhere, MY platform -- running on anything, MY app store -- on anyone. Amazon's model is illustrative. It's hard to read non-Amazon content on a Kindle (harder than any other platform!) but easy to read Amazon content on any rival platform. They've been less successful with video because they aren't able to leverage their existing near-monopolies as well.
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  I agree. The Kindle is broken is this regard for me. It can't sync my notes or progress from books I didn't buy on Amazon. I have The Cloud. All I want is a system that lets me read and sync all eBooks (and PDFs too please!) on all readers. Does anything like this exist?
  - taeric 13y ago
    I thought this did work if you put it in your "library". It at least seems to do so with the books I purchased through the humble bundle.
  - moultano 13y ago
    Google Play Books lets you upload epubs, PDFs, etc. and syncs them for you between your devices. I don't know if that meets your needs. I use it for all the papers I want to read on my tablet.
RRRA 13y ago
Flash is such an ecosystem...
anabis 13y ago
As a TV developer, I say connect a PC to the TV already. Making a 37-in TV that sells for £479.00 is a major feat in itself. The panel leaves scant margin for a SoC. Porting various codecs and runtimes to run on the said SoC is easier said than done.
alextingle 13y ago
Meanwhile, in the Pirate Bay ecosystem...
vidarh 13y ago
I first started buying Kindle books once I was confident that I could trivially rip the DRM off them via Calibre. (EDIT: And I'm very glad I did, as just the other day I bought a book that in its original format causes the Android Kindle app to go back to the main screen if I remain on the same page for more than a few seconds(!) and lose its position in the book - thanks to Calibre I know I have alternatives, including converting it to other formats and/or reading it in other readers, if Amazon doesn't manage to figure out what the issue is; that's within the first dozen books I've bought from the Kindle store) I will start buying video online when I'm equally confident I can do the same. The free videos via Prime I'll be more lenient with. Even rentals. I don't mind DRM on that per se. Except that the DRM generally prevents me or make it hard to access it on all my devices. If they won't run on my Linux laptop (they might, as I understand it, via Pipelight, but I've not tested), or on my Android TV stick, or on my Android phone, they might as well not exist. In that case the value of Amazon Instant Video to me is arguably negative: I receive zero value, and there's a an added negative value in having it shoved in my face knowing they're choosing to artificially limit my access. I'm less happy about my Prime subscription today, knowing the amount of potential hassle might be involved in trying to get access to these videos than I was before I received the e-mail saying they'd added Instant Video to the UK Prime accounts last night...
jokoon 13y ago
Part is how business is done when you have a patent system in place. It's hard to innovate when you're an investor, so those who do manage to sell in a certain market tend to milk their users instead of trying to get more customers. They don't really understand very well why people use IT products, so they tend to take no risks and lock in. This could be solved like this: * Be a company who doesn't lose lawsuits to patent trolls. I don't really know the details of that. I don't know how the justice system technically manage those things. * Fix the patent system to have an healthier innovation landmark. * Have a business model where companies who do innovate refuse to be bought, and only agree to do partnerships with other companies so to avoid the lock-in between giants. If you get bought by google or microsoft, it will indeed change how your product will end up being used or not. This solution is naive.
joelthelion 13y ago
Meanwhile the pirate bay is still compatible with pretty much any system on the planet. If you want my money you'll have to provide at least the same amount of service. And stop being assholes trying to pass massive surveillance laws every three months.
- rayiner 13y ago
  If you don't like the terms for which someone is offering their original creations, why don't you just buy a different product sold on terms you agree with? There's no shortage of indie content out there, you know. Or maybe create it yourself? By pirating it instead, you acknowledge that these content creators make something unique and non-fungible and irreplaceable, but then assert that nonetheless they shouldn't have the right to set the terms on which they distribute those creations to the public. I think the pro-piracy position is just totally irrational. If I'm gay and I don't like Chick Fil-A's anti-gay message, should I: a) refuse to do business with them; or b) steal chicken sandwiches instead?[1] The big media companies don't have a monopoly on content. The costs to both produce and consume indie content are lower than they ever have been. [1] At this point someone will bring out the "copying isn't stealing" hypothetical. Technically true, but consider this: any product has a delta between its market price and its marginal cost of production. The marginal cost of producing a copy of a piece of digital content isn't zero, but it's very close to it. But lots of products sell for far more than their marginal cost of reproduction. Is it okay to steal sandwiches from Chick fil-A if you leave an amount of money that covers the cost of producing the next sandwich? Apply that reasoning to products like Apple computers or Prada handbags that sell for far more than their marginal cost of production. Is it okay to take those items and leave an amount of money that compensates for the cost of replacing it? Or do we have a general understanding that companies that produce things have a right to the profit they can earn on each item?
  - gtirloni 13y ago
    By pirating it instead, you acknowledge that these content creators make something unique and non-fungible and irreplaceable Don't they? The problem is not with what they create, it's how they want to limit your options of using what you legally bought.
staticshock 13y ago
> Even Microsoft, the technology's creator, sees no future in [Silverlight] I don't understand the basis for making such a statement. The last Silverlight release is not very old; the linked "lifecycle search" lists mainstream support for the latest version of Silverlight until 2021; there are no announcement that the product is being abandoned. Is it just hyperbole?
- vidarh 13y ago
  They're providing security fixes and support for a long time, but every indication is that there will be no further feature upgrades, which for all intents and purposes means that it is dead in the water other than for very limited uses like DRM'd video playback.
- gtirloni 13y ago
  Agreed. Also, if rumors are to be trusted, there will be a new release of Silverlight: http://www.zdnet.com/a-new-year-a-new-microsoft-roadmap-stepping-up-the-delivery-pace-7000009402/ http://www.zdnet.com/a-new-year-a-new-microsoft-roadmap-step... I think people are overreacting to the fact that Microsoft improved support for HTML5+JS in Win8 apps, WP8, etc, and are assuming they will let all other technologies die. Even if true, how long of a death it will be? People have also assumed Flash is completely dead as of _now_ since HTML5+JS is getting increased attention. Then putting Silverlight in the same position and calling it a day. IMHO, these technologies will stay with us for a while.
  - edent 13y ago
    That article is from January 2013. Referencing a document from 2012. Their blog hasn't been updated in 2 years - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlight/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlight/ They haven't tweeted for 3 months - https://twitter.com/silverlight https://twitter.com/silverlight Perhaps they're all working really hard on Silverlight 6...
javindo 13y ago
The thing I'm most pissed off about is having this rubbish bundled in with Prime at a non-additional extra cost. As a current Prime customer, I will not be renewing next year. I generally respect Amazon, Bezos, most of what they do and their business strategy, but this is a real shitbag move towards paying Prime customers.
ilbe 13y ago
Why not just get a $300 projector and plug your laptop in?
- Shorel 13y ago
  Native Resolution: 800 x 600
shurcooL 13y ago
Just to be clear, I upvoted this, but I thinking TVs being anything but a dumb display is a really bad idea. It wastes developer time trying to stuff support for proprietary technologies and reinvents the wheel. Just... just be a display and let me connect whatever proper devices to it, instead of trying to put a crappy and slow YouTube app that gets obsoleted within a year.
- edent 13y ago
  I would agree - but does that mean I need to buy a NetFlix box, a cable TV box, an Amazon box, a YouTube box, a Vimeo box etc.? Or, do I run one box that magically supports them all? Apart from DailyMotion who've decided they want me to buy their special adapter....
  - shurcooL 13y ago
    > Or, do I run one box that magically supports them all? A computer? That's what I would use.
    - edent 13y ago
      Where do I find a computer which runs all these services, has a nice easy to use front end, and doesn't cost a fortune?
quasque 13y ago
Is this really that important? If you don't like it, don't use it (it being Amazon's video streaming service). There are plenty of competing services if you have a burning need to watch films via the Internet. No need to throw a tantrum.
- claudius 13y ago
  It’s annoying because now they expect me to pay 49€ rather than 29€ for the same service, namely for them to ship stuff to me at costs competitive with going out to buy said stuff directly. I don’t know of any company competing with Amazon in that space, sadly.
  - quasque 13y ago
    If shipping cost is important to you, then indeed why not just go out and buy it directly?
    - claudius 13y ago
      I like the convenience of ordering online, but paying 5€ for each order is too much and makes me want to combine different orders, which takes some of that convenience away again. Just paying 29€ flat for a year was perfect, I could order online whenever I needed something without worrying about shipping and the like (the actual items being roughly the same price as in local shops). 49€ is slightly too much for that usecase, and the price increase only being justified by zero extra value only furthers its unacceptability.
beachstartup 13y ago
i have a panasonic viera from 2011 and it includes an amazon video player in its built-in apps (along with netflix, and a couple of other services). i use it all the time to watch movies and tv shows using prime, for free, and for pay. is the author talking about a different service?
- edent 13y ago
  Interesting - are you based in the UK?
  - beachstartup 13y ago
    i bought my TV in los angeles and live here.
arca_vorago 13y ago
Let just boil this issue down to what it really is: closed source vs open source. With the "in-your-face-doubters" revelations of Snowden that many of us have been raving about for years, it still boils down to the main issue which is control of data. Closed source and you never fully control your data, it's that simple. Stop making it more complicated than it really is, and once again, I say that RMS was a man that will be increasingly vindicated over time. Also, fuck the "cloud".
frik 13y ago
HTML 5.1 will feature DRM ("Encrypted Media Extensions"): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standards https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standard... Sadly Microsoft, Google, Netflix and BBC want this in HTML 5.1. We can only hope that Mozilla [1], Apple, Adobe, etc. won't support DRM in their products. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=872125 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=872125
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  Mozilla most definitely won't support it, but Adobe will. Apple will implement their own, incompatible-with-everyone-else, DRM instead.
  - frik 13y ago
    You are right about Adobe, I found a source: http://blogs.adobe.com/standards/2013/06/19/adobe-support-for-encrypted-media-extensions/ http://blogs.adobe.com/standards/2013/06/19/adobe-support-fo... I haven't found a source that details Apple's plan.
skywhopper 13y ago
The trend of vertical hyper-integration combined with Comcast's hegemony over broadband and gradual creeping loss of Net Neutrality means that we're gradually moving towards a less and less useful Internet. Unfortunately, whatever benefits these companies might reap in the long-term from wide-open media standards and net neutrality are too small or too uncertain to allow them to move towards openness. I hate to say it on this site, but government does have a role to play here in establishing rules for basic market fairness. Unfortunately, so far the government rules have all been in favor of the media industry and against consumers. Abolishing DRM and going strict on net neutrality are, I think, the two key pieces of the puzzle. Much of the other problems would quickly fall away. Stronger fair use and compulsory licensing across a broader spectrum of IP would also help.
skywhopper 13y ago
As far as TV support goes, no one should expect their TVs to handle streaming media for them. That was and is a terrible idea. A TV should be a monitor, end of story.
peterwwillis 13y ago
Oh hey. It's a bitchy consumer with entitlement issues. Fancy seeing one of those on HN. You know what ecosystem is nice? Earth's. Go outside and play in the snow for fuck's sake.
LeicaLatte 13y ago
What next? I want horses, not cars? Sorry but crapping about ecosystems is crapping on a fundamental construct of human organization.
tps12 13y ago
My car and phone both "have" Bluetooth, but I can't use them together because the car doesn't "support" the phone. Doesn't really make sense to me.
nayefc 13y ago
This sounds utopian but not practical; a typical dev-only mistakes with poor business perspective. How else will they make money? Making money is the most important thing, and without it, none of this would have existed.
qwerta 13y ago
I think basic problem is 'smart tv'. I got cheap android HDTV, it handles everything including flash videos and streaming from FTP server...
dredmorbius 13y ago
The relevant book to read on this topic is Varian and Shapiro's Information Rules. Aimed at companies, and written in the late 1990s, its concepts are now increasingly applicable to the consumer information/IT space. In particular it discusses lock-in, or what we're now calling "fucking ecosystems". http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Economy/dp/087584863X/ http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec...
lurkinggrue 13y ago
One reason I never buy drm'ed media.

267 points by edent 13y ago

Cory Doctorow calls it "the war on general-purpose computing" and it's a pretty damn good read [1] (or talk [2]). [1] - http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

rimantas 13y ago
Don't you think that it is a stupid name? Why should it be a zero-sum game? Also, I still do eat with spoon, fork and a knife, but I do not call that "war on spork".
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  > Also, I still do eat with spoon, fork and a knife, but I do not call that "war on spork". Because the barrier to entry to creating your own fork, should Big Cutlery™ decide they want to prevent your access to one, is very low.
  - untothebreach 13y ago
    I wish I could upvote you twice...once for your point, and again for "Big Cutlery"
  - rimantas 13y ago
    You miss the point. If I am some huge player who decides to produce tablets, how does that make me at war with someone else producing computers? Or are those producing utensils at war with Victorinox? So who is actively trying to hurt "general computing" devices? And by this I mean not "producing limited computing devices" but active and deliberate actions against general computing. Or shall we all close our eyes and pretend that many of those general computing devices never saw general computing in their lives? Some are glorified typewriters, some are facebook and email devices, some are game machines. Where does this tunnel vision that anyone working with something with CPU inside should be interested in general computing?
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Bad analogy. Your utensils don't prohibit you from eating certain foods because they've chosen not to support them. Come to think, that's pretty hilarious actually.
  - robinh 13y ago
    Forkenheit 451.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - stephencanon 13y ago
    Not arguing with the basic point, but I find it rather humorous that forks essententially do prevent you from eating soup because they've chosen not to (literally) support it. You need to use a different device to consume that media.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      Yup, but on the other hand no one calls a fork "general-purpose kitchen utensil".
    - codelap 13y ago
      Not quite, forks are ill suited to the job of consuming many soups. This is more akin to how the Samsung watch is ill suited to host a Super Bowl party. All devices cannot be all things, nor should they be, and this has nothing to do with content licences.
    - pferde 13y ago
      No, you can still eat your soup with a fork. It will work. Nobody will stop you. It will just be very ineffective, and your soup will get cold long before you finish it.
    - Kluny 13y ago
      Ok, it's time to stop talking about cutlery, everyone in this thread.
- pjc50 13y ago
  The analogy would be having to pick one of spoon, fork, or knife for eating a whole meal with. Soup and steak. In this dystopia, manufacturing sporks is banned as patent infringement and filing an edge and some tines into your spoon is a DMCA violation.
  - talmand 13y ago
    Don't forget there will have to be some type of law forcing you to purchase a spoon as it is unfair to spoon manufacturers that you don't require a utensil at all to consume soup from an easily lifted bowl. Maybe force all bowls to be too big and heavy to easily lift?
- ctdonath 13y ago
  There is literally a movement to ban pointed kitchen knives in England. https://www.google.com/search?q=pointed+knives+uk+ban https://www.google.com/search?q=pointed+knives+uk+ban
  - talmand 13y ago
    Wait, you mean all my jokes about banning guns just leads to increased stabbings so they'll eventually have to ban knives has come true? Blimey!
  - phaemon 13y ago
    There literally isn't. There's literally one report from 2005 from one A&E (ER) dept that suggested it would be a good idea. Others disagreed.

Fuxy 13y ago

I think the smart TV is inherently a lock in platform like the old phone market use to be when Nokia phones were all the rage. If the smart TV runs android I'm ok with it the apps are already there but if anything else i would rather have the "smart" part outside my TV and just get a regular old TV. Say for instance using XBMC I know it's a lot less likely the apps will get out of date or I'm going to be forced by some vendors whims to use certain service because they need to increase their profit margins.

techsupporter 13y ago

I'm really beginning to think that views like this (which I share) are in the minority, at least so far as the "making astounding quantities of money" crowd are concerned. Even downloading an MP3 from Amazon--a process that used to just result in an MP3 link being presented after payment--needs a client and wants to sync to the cloud. Vendor lock-in has been a thing for as long as there have been computers, it's just that our interconnectedness has made it even more visible and incredibly more lucrative.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
Doanloading an MP3 from amazon doesn't require a client. It does sync to the cloud, but it doesn't require a client. I guess I don't see the vendor lock-in there?
- grey-area 13y ago
  I just tried a few days ago. They heavily promote their client and I couldn't find a link to just download the MP3s.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I started my post with: Sign into Amazon. Hit this link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/ays https://www.amazon.com/gp/ays View->View By Type->Music->Amazon MP3 But then tried to actually download my music or Kindle books. You're right. It's actually quite difficult to. Not pleasant. EDIT: Apparently I'm a dolt; see /u/thaumasiotes's response below.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      Well, come on. You could at least go the the pages that offer the functionality you want. Hit "Manage Your Kindle" from the "Your account" dropdown and download Kindle books to your heart's content; they really couldn't make that any easier. You'd download your music through "Your Cloud Player", just like Amazon tells you to do when you buy it. Alternatively, your order history for any item will include the relevant link.

brador 13y ago

Spread information. Just like you're doing with this article. Eventually, enough decisions will be made based on that information, that was previously unknown or hidden, that companies will change their practises.

girvo 13y ago

As crazy as this sounds... I've got no problems with being in an "ecosystem" as long as it can be run on any device. See Kindle for a perfect example -- I have it on my iPhone, iPad, desktop and my PaperWhite. Perfect. Or Netflix: runs on everything. But if your "ecosystem" is limited to particular devices (see: iMessage, or the OP) then it may as well not exist as far as I'm concerned. Hell, even Apple knew iTunes needed to run on Windows to matter. Eventually, anyway.

odonnellryan 13y ago
I think it's fine, but I also think some middleground has to be taken so that we aren't slowly tied into a "ecosystem." The example I like is Netflix on Linux. Now, boredom will find a way - and I use Wine and FireFox - but, does it really have to be like that? I understand Linux is (without looking it up) something like 1% of the desktop market. But really... why should that matter? I know, business..but it's a consumer product. When I'm trying to look through Netflix's website to see what's supported, all I can find is them trying to sell me proprietary devices. I don't mind so much, because I still like Netflix.
- dan1234 13y ago
  It comes down to cost. It's cheaper for Netflix to have you use their box than it is for them to develop & support a Linux client for the relatively small user base. Licensing restrictions and other politics likely prevent them from accepting open source clients, even if they wanted to.
- davexunit 13y ago
  GNU/Linux users are not in their business interests. And you can't fix that problem because the software is proprietary. The only acceptable option is to stop using Netflix.
  - odonnellryan 13y ago
    Okay - I understand. And use what, though? Pirate Bay? Maybe launch a startup that has only public-domain videos to start? There has to be a good solution.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

This is one of the reasons why Net Neutrality is so important. Everybody and their brother wants to lock you in to their platform (whether it's a phone or an ISP) then split, differentiate, and bundle the product in so many complex ways you'll be lucky if you even understand what you're purchasing. Cell phone companies have already done this. Airlines as well. So have insurance companies. They make money by farming the walled garden in such a way as to make it look like you have increased choices, but, mirabile dictu, all the choices end up with you paying more money each month. Enough is enough.

rrorty 13y ago
It's always sad to see Libertarians sacrificing their principles as soon as it involves a slight inconvenience to themselves. Net Neutrality means handing control of the internet to the government. Regulatory capture and special interests will ensure any Net Neutrality legislation is an unworkable mess that sets investment in the internet back decades. For video things would be even worse. Do you want Congress telling Amazon which video formats they have to use, and which formats the devices they sell must support? When Amazon doesn't want to support some proprietary standard that congress members got bribed to pick then the thugs with guns will turn up at Amazon HQ and Amazon will be unable to defend themselves. We know that markets are inherently self-correcting, we just need to have patience.
- p8952 13y ago
  Net Neutrality can be supported and enforced without government intervention though.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  Whoa horsey! Nobody's asking for regulations here. I think in a digital age, "Product Definition" benefits everybody in the marketplace, and there's no reason we can't come together on that, whether by industry association or legal definition. No regulators or laws necessary. I simply need to know when I'm buying an "apple" that I get a red thing that's somewhat round and good to eat -- all without spending 3 years studying the nuances of apple law. That's good for everybody because it encourages and supports a free and open market. This is what we want, no? I'm not asking for a bureaucrat, or an agency. I just want bins in the market where vendors put stuff where I can easily tell what the thing is, that's all.

aet 13y ago

Roku

PaulHoule 13y ago

This reminds me of the bad old days. Around 1980 you'd buy an Apple ][ or a TRS-80 or a Commodore VIC and they all were incompatible, although most of them still had Micro$oft BASIC.

muyuu 13y ago
There were better justifications back then though. Stuff ran on completely different hardware and layers of abstraction weren't really workable. Some of the BASIC was more or less compatible but then again most stuff was machine code and BASIC was usually just the OS's terminal and bootloader of sorts. One could not reasonably expect the same software to work unchanged on a MOS 6502 based computer like the VIC or the Apple ][ and in a Z80 based computer like the TRS-80. And there were many more differences at the hardware and ROM-kernel level that made cross-platform software largely unworkable.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
"...most of them still had Micro$oft BASIC" Behold the genius of Bill. Also of note, I first learned programming in QBASIC. And by programming I mean dozens of GOTO loops.
mikecane 13y ago
And yet with a modem and comm software, they could all connect to online services -- The Source, CompuServe, BBSes.
pekk 13y ago
Apple kept the bad old days alive with its own intentionally locked-in ecosystem. Maybe if they had failed more spectacularly in the 90s then perhaps today every company wouldn't be using iPhone lockin as a goal to aspire to.

nhangen 13y ago

This article is a misguided attempt to bemoan Panasonic for not enabling Amazon Prime video on their devices, which really has nothing to do with ecosystems and more to do with inferior technology and/or poor pre-purchase research. I don't view Prime Video as an ecosystem but more as an added value type of thing. Beyond that, it's opt-in, therefore not limiting. If the OP wanted Prime Video on their TV they should have purchased a TV that offered it, or buy a box that does it as an add-on.

chewxy 13y ago
Is that not rather the point of the post? I read it as Panasonic is trying to enforce its own ecosystem. It's not playing well with Amazon's ecosystem. Amazon's ecosystem doesn't play well with Android either (which to me is rather surprising, given Amazon has Kindle on Android)
justincormack 13y ago
Prime Video did not exist when the OP bought his TV.
- nhangen 13y ago
  So he's expecting Panasonic to upgrade the software to support it? I don't see how you can blame Panasonic for not having something that didn't exist when the TV was made. I'm not a Panasonic fan, but I would guess they a) can't afford to add Prime and/or b) are trying to offer what they can in place of it.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
Or buy an HDMi cable.
maxerickson 13y ago
The fact that you have to have some custom client (I don't care how thin it is) to get interop means it is an ecosystem. There are business reasons to avoid interop (it costs money, it removes branding opportunities, blah blah blah), but let's not pretend they are anything else.

scrittler 13y ago

They aren't ecosystems - they're biospheres. They look like a functional system but by operating independently of external forces they stagnate quickly.

Qworg 13y ago

There is a misalignment of incentives. You want to be able to consume X on any Y. Companies want to sell you X on the expectation that you've bought their Y. Given that they've already been extremely successful doing this, X is only available on their Y. Why should they change?

Fuxy 13y ago
Because if they do they might just create another extremely profitable market place. Remember when all phones expected you to use their own proprietary OS with their own proprietary apps and developers had to make apps for every brand and model separately? That's vendor lockin taken to such an extreme that people can't even be bother to make apps anymore. Plus these apps are quickly going to become obsolete or outdated base what developer can be bothered to keep up with all that crap. Same logic applies just this time it's not phones it's smart TV's.
- Qworg 13y ago
  Except that Apple is still making money hand over fist with a proprietary OS with their own proprietary apps, happily built by people who aren't Apple employees for 70% of their value. Where does the profit in the new marketplace come from?
  - Fuxy 13y ago
    Apple was the first to implement the concept properly before android caught up so they had a head start. The combination of excellent implementation of a touchscreen in the phone (it was done multiple times before but every other implementation sucked) and the combination of that with a proper app store (by today's standards) gave them the push necessary. Notice it wasn't any of the regular players at the time that took it in the right direction but a no name in the phone industry. Everybody else was too busy fighting each other instead of innovating. The profit is where it gets a bit odd since most likely the only profit the manufacturer of the TV gets is the price of the TV and maybe some bonuses from the companies whose app get installed by default on the TV. No different then a laptop now. The TV may become popular because of its great flexibility app wise but the bulk of the profits will be earned by software companies distributing the apps through adverts or by charging for the app.

davexunit 13y ago

The author is mixing together several problems here. 1) Amazon bundling a video service with their free shipping program. 2) Amazon's proprietary software locking in you into whatever platforms that are in their business interests. 3) Panasonic's proprietary TV platform that people can't be bothered to develop for. 4) Digital Restrictions Management that prevents one from downloading a movie via Amazon Prime and playing it in any other video player on any other platform. This is just the usual awful situation when you rely on proprietary software. Stop using Amazon Prime to watch videos. Write to them about the problems you have. I recently wrote to Audible because their ebooks come with DRM and cannot be played on GNU/Linux using Free Software.

taybin 13y ago
Did you get a response? The author mentions that he wrote to Panasonic and Amazon and was basically brushed off.
- davexunit 13y ago
  Yeah, not exactly a satisfactory one, though. Just something along the lines of "We have sent your request to remove DRM to our audio team. We value your feedback." It was a nice way of saying that mail has been forwarded to the audio team to throw in the bin. Still, better than being ignored outright.
  - bowlich 13y ago
    Demand a refund. My girlfriend ran into this problem (we're pretty much a Linux household). Just could not get the audible books to run on Ubuntu and I wasn't willing to spend the time hunting around for a way to get around it. Fortunately, Audible was pretty gracious about the refund.
    - davexunit 13y ago
      Are you me? That's the exact problem my girlfriend and I had and she did receive a refund.

josephlord 13y ago

I used to do business development work at Sony bringing content services onto the TVs although this is a few years ago now. It is complicated and messy and there are many aspects both technical and commercial[0] that can cause services not to be available. Lovefilm were one of the most flexible and adaptable service providers although I don't know the extent to which this still applies with Amazon. I don't blame Panasonic for not supporting Flash/Silverlight in the TV. Adopting either of these is likely to require unpleasant licensing terms AND opaque binary blobs into the TV software. On the service provider side they cannot just drop the security measures (DRM or other security measures) as that would likely be breaching their own licenses from the content owners (film companies). If not supporting a major recognised DRM approach it can be a real sticking block. [0] Including placement, branding, design and obviously any revenue share arrangements.

jotm 13y ago

The main problem is that most consumers don't really care about openness, functionality and anything that requires a bit of brain power to understand. They get a TV, smartphone, PC - it works, cool. That feature is missing - oh, shucks, whatcha gonna do? It was probably too hard to implement anyway, right? Which is why ecosystems exist - once people learn how to use that one simple system, they'll tend to buy stuff from the same company for convenience's sake. Most poeple don't want to figure out how to install apps, why this web page isn't displaying correctly, or how to make those mp3 files smaller.

Touche 13y ago

While I agree with his point about ecosystems (I strongly avoid them), these examples are a bit weak. Android is not an "open standard", it's a code-dumped open source touch OS controlled by 1 company. Amazon should make an Android app, but by doing so they are contributing to an ecosystem. What's not widely known is that, unlike smartphones, HTML5 is the dominant platform for TV-based apps. That's why every TV has Netflix, not because Netflix is employing an army of engineers to make a new app for each TV model. However, TV based apps are still apps that are installed and controlled by the TV vendor. Which means Amazon has to strike a deal with Panasonic to get their generic HTML5 app on Panasonic TVs. If HTML5 DRM (which, to clarify, I am opposed to) becomes a standard this whole mess could be avoided and Amazon could serve their videos on any TV with a modern browser.

danieldk 13y ago
While I agree with his point about ecosystems (I strongly avoid them), these examples are a bit weak. Android is not an "open standard", it's a code-dumped open source touch OS controlled by 1 company. Evenmore, Android doesn't support standards very well. E.g., the default IMAP mail client didn't (probably still doesn't) have IDLE support, it doesn't have CardDAV/CalDAV support (luckily, there are external connectors), and XMPP federation is gone, so you can only talk with your Hangouts buddies via Hangouts. The 'problem' is that from a user's perspective Android is great. The integration with the Google ecosystem in Android is impressive. And given that many westeners already have GMail et al., Android provides a great and smooth out of the box experience. So, there is little reason to switch, as long as the ads don't become to intrusive.

dankoss 13y ago

The problem here isn't ecosystems, it's standards. Standards that allow us to move MP3s, emails, books, etc. between providers. I'd like to believe that HTML5 will eventually be the standard for video delivery, but this may never happen. There's no incentive to standardize streaming content delivery because it would increase competition and take power away from the corporations.

logicallee 13y ago

I don't mind being part of your ecosystem as long as I'm part of your family, you care for my needs, think about me, and the whole company is built around my lifestyle and serves it really well leaving not much to be desired. The loss in interoperability is worth it in this case. If you're not going to be the above, then act like a pipe-able Unix process.

tootie 13y ago

Amazon most definitely has an android app for instance video. That's how it runs on Kindle Fire devices. They just don't approve it (or enable it to work) on non-Kindle devices. You can find leaked apk files on various forums, but they don't fit most screens and crash frequently. On the flip side, you can stream movies via their website in Firefox for Android which still supports Flash.

far33d 13y ago

It's not clear that Amazon has 100% control over how they distribute video. Rights holders are pretty controlling about DRM, distribution, and what devices can use their content. I don't know anything about the specific deals here, but I wouldn't be surprised if an open Amazon Instant Video was an Amazon Instant Video without very much content you'd care about.

josinalvo 13y ago

maybe it would be good to have some sort of (general) index of compatibility for consumer products. A one-number thing. "how likely this product is to lock you out of something good". If this information is valuable (and I think it is!) even small fluctuations on the index could push a given product up.

peligoose 13y ago

I'm a fan of ecosystems.

Tloewald 13y ago

The basic issue is lock-in. Ideally we'd have no lock-in, but that's a benefit balanced against other benefits (e.g. having a good UI, ease of setup and maintenance, enough scope for vendors to make money and stay in business). In practice this means we tolerate a certain amount of lock-in for other benefits. But, the problem comes when everyone thinks that they can be the guy with the tolerable lock-in. Use MY video service -- anywhere, MY platform -- running on anything, MY app store -- on anyone. Amazon's model is illustrative. It's hard to read non-Amazon content on a Kindle (harder than any other platform!) but easy to read Amazon content on any rival platform. They've been less successful with video because they aren't able to leverage their existing near-monopolies as well.

acjohnson55 13y ago
I agree. The Kindle is broken is this regard for me. It can't sync my notes or progress from books I didn't buy on Amazon. I have The Cloud. All I want is a system that lets me read and sync all eBooks (and PDFs too please!) on all readers. Does anything like this exist?
- taeric 13y ago
  I thought this did work if you put it in your "library". It at least seems to do so with the books I purchased through the humble bundle.
- moultano 13y ago
  Google Play Books lets you upload epubs, PDFs, etc. and syncs them for you between your devices. I don't know if that meets your needs. I use it for all the papers I want to read on my tablet.

RRRA 13y ago

Flash is such an ecosystem...

anabis 13y ago

As a TV developer, I say connect a PC to the TV already. Making a 37-in TV that sells for £479.00 is a major feat in itself. The panel leaves scant margin for a SoC. Porting various codecs and runtimes to run on the said SoC is easier said than done.

alextingle 13y ago

Meanwhile, in the Pirate Bay ecosystem...

vidarh 13y ago

I first started buying Kindle books once I was confident that I could trivially rip the DRM off them via Calibre. (EDIT: And I'm very glad I did, as just the other day I bought a book that in its original format causes the Android Kindle app to go back to the main screen if I remain on the same page for more than a few seconds(!) and lose its position in the book - thanks to Calibre I know I have alternatives, including converting it to other formats and/or reading it in other readers, if Amazon doesn't manage to figure out what the issue is; that's within the first dozen books I've bought from the Kindle store) I will start buying video online when I'm equally confident I can do the same. The free videos via Prime I'll be more lenient with. Even rentals. I don't mind DRM on that per se. Except that the DRM generally prevents me or make it hard to access it on all my devices. If they won't run on my Linux laptop (they might, as I understand it, via Pipelight, but I've not tested), or on my Android TV stick, or on my Android phone, they might as well not exist. In that case the value of Amazon Instant Video to me is arguably negative: I receive zero value, and there's a an added negative value in having it shoved in my face knowing they're choosing to artificially limit my access. I'm less happy about my Prime subscription today, knowing the amount of potential hassle might be involved in trying to get access to these videos than I was before I received the e-mail saying they'd added Instant Video to the UK Prime accounts last night...

jokoon 13y ago

Part is how business is done when you have a patent system in place. It's hard to innovate when you're an investor, so those who do manage to sell in a certain market tend to milk their users instead of trying to get more customers. They don't really understand very well why people use IT products, so they tend to take no risks and lock in. This could be solved like this: * Be a company who doesn't lose lawsuits to patent trolls. I don't really know the details of that. I don't know how the justice system technically manage those things. * Fix the patent system to have an healthier innovation landmark. * Have a business model where companies who do innovate refuse to be bought, and only agree to do partnerships with other companies so to avoid the lock-in between giants. If you get bought by google or microsoft, it will indeed change how your product will end up being used or not. This solution is naive.

joelthelion 13y ago

Meanwhile the pirate bay is still compatible with pretty much any system on the planet. If you want my money you'll have to provide at least the same amount of service. And stop being assholes trying to pass massive surveillance laws every three months.

rayiner 13y ago
If you don't like the terms for which someone is offering their original creations, why don't you just buy a different product sold on terms you agree with? There's no shortage of indie content out there, you know. Or maybe create it yourself? By pirating it instead, you acknowledge that these content creators make something unique and non-fungible and irreplaceable, but then assert that nonetheless they shouldn't have the right to set the terms on which they distribute those creations to the public. I think the pro-piracy position is just totally irrational. If I'm gay and I don't like Chick Fil-A's anti-gay message, should I: a) refuse to do business with them; or b) steal chicken sandwiches instead?[1] The big media companies don't have a monopoly on content. The costs to both produce and consume indie content are lower than they ever have been. [1] At this point someone will bring out the "copying isn't stealing" hypothetical. Technically true, but consider this: any product has a delta between its market price and its marginal cost of production. The marginal cost of producing a copy of a piece of digital content isn't zero, but it's very close to it. But lots of products sell for far more than their marginal cost of reproduction. Is it okay to steal sandwiches from Chick fil-A if you leave an amount of money that covers the cost of producing the next sandwich? Apply that reasoning to products like Apple computers or Prada handbags that sell for far more than their marginal cost of production. Is it okay to take those items and leave an amount of money that compensates for the cost of replacing it? Or do we have a general understanding that companies that produce things have a right to the profit they can earn on each item?
- gtirloni 13y ago
  By pirating it instead, you acknowledge that these content creators make something unique and non-fungible and irreplaceable Don't they? The problem is not with what they create, it's how they want to limit your options of using what you legally bought.

staticshock 13y ago

> Even Microsoft, the technology's creator, sees no future in [Silverlight] I don't understand the basis for making such a statement. The last Silverlight release is not very old; the linked "lifecycle search" lists mainstream support for the latest version of Silverlight until 2021; there are no announcement that the product is being abandoned. Is it just hyperbole?

vidarh 13y ago
They're providing security fixes and support for a long time, but every indication is that there will be no further feature upgrades, which for all intents and purposes means that it is dead in the water other than for very limited uses like DRM'd video playback.
gtirloni 13y ago
Agreed. Also, if rumors are to be trusted, there will be a new release of Silverlight: http://www.zdnet.com/a-new-year-a-new-microsoft-roadmap-stepping-up-the-delivery-pace-7000009402/ http://www.zdnet.com/a-new-year-a-new-microsoft-roadmap-step... I think people are overreacting to the fact that Microsoft improved support for HTML5+JS in Win8 apps, WP8, etc, and are assuming they will let all other technologies die. Even if true, how long of a death it will be? People have also assumed Flash is completely dead as of _now_ since HTML5+JS is getting increased attention. Then putting Silverlight in the same position and calling it a day. IMHO, these technologies will stay with us for a while.
- edent 13y ago
  That article is from January 2013. Referencing a document from 2012. Their blog hasn't been updated in 2 years - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlight/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/silverlight/ They haven't tweeted for 3 months - https://twitter.com/silverlight https://twitter.com/silverlight Perhaps they're all working really hard on Silverlight 6...

javindo 13y ago

The thing I'm most pissed off about is having this rubbish bundled in with Prime at a non-additional extra cost. As a current Prime customer, I will not be renewing next year. I generally respect Amazon, Bezos, most of what they do and their business strategy, but this is a real shitbag move towards paying Prime customers.

ilbe 13y ago

Why not just get a $300 projector and plug your laptop in?

Shorel 13y ago
Native Resolution: 800 x 600

shurcooL 13y ago

Just to be clear, I upvoted this, but I thinking TVs being anything but a dumb display is a really bad idea. It wastes developer time trying to stuff support for proprietary technologies and reinvents the wheel. Just... just be a display and let me connect whatever proper devices to it, instead of trying to put a crappy and slow YouTube app that gets obsoleted within a year.

edent 13y ago
I would agree - but does that mean I need to buy a NetFlix box, a cable TV box, an Amazon box, a YouTube box, a Vimeo box etc.? Or, do I run one box that magically supports them all? Apart from DailyMotion who've decided they want me to buy their special adapter....
- shurcooL 13y ago
  > Or, do I run one box that magically supports them all? A computer? That's what I would use.
  - edent 13y ago
    Where do I find a computer which runs all these services, has a nice easy to use front end, and doesn't cost a fortune?

quasque 13y ago

Is this really that important? If you don't like it, don't use it (it being Amazon's video streaming service). There are plenty of competing services if you have a burning need to watch films via the Internet. No need to throw a tantrum.

claudius 13y ago
It’s annoying because now they expect me to pay 49€ rather than 29€ for the same service, namely for them to ship stuff to me at costs competitive with going out to buy said stuff directly. I don’t know of any company competing with Amazon in that space, sadly.
- quasque 13y ago
  If shipping cost is important to you, then indeed why not just go out and buy it directly?
  - claudius 13y ago
    I like the convenience of ordering online, but paying 5€ for each order is too much and makes me want to combine different orders, which takes some of that convenience away again. Just paying 29€ flat for a year was perfect, I could order online whenever I needed something without worrying about shipping and the like (the actual items being roughly the same price as in local shops). 49€ is slightly too much for that usecase, and the price increase only being justified by zero extra value only furthers its unacceptability.

beachstartup 13y ago

i have a panasonic viera from 2011 and it includes an amazon video player in its built-in apps (along with netflix, and a couple of other services). i use it all the time to watch movies and tv shows using prime, for free, and for pay. is the author talking about a different service?

edent 13y ago
Interesting - are you based in the UK?
- beachstartup 13y ago
  i bought my TV in los angeles and live here.

arca_vorago 13y ago

Let just boil this issue down to what it really is: closed source vs open source. With the "in-your-face-doubters" revelations of Snowden that many of us have been raving about for years, it still boils down to the main issue which is control of data. Closed source and you never fully control your data, it's that simple. Stop making it more complicated than it really is, and once again, I say that RMS was a man that will be increasingly vindicated over time. Also, fuck the "cloud".

frik 13y ago

HTML 5.1 will feature DRM ("Encrypted Media Extensions"): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standards https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standard... Sadly Microsoft, Google, Netflix and BBC want this in HTML 5.1. We can only hope that Mozilla [1], Apple, Adobe, etc. won't support DRM in their products. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=872125 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=872125

w1ntermute 13y ago
Mozilla most definitely won't support it, but Adobe will. Apple will implement their own, incompatible-with-everyone-else, DRM instead.
- frik 13y ago
  You are right about Adobe, I found a source: http://blogs.adobe.com/standards/2013/06/19/adobe-support-for-encrypted-media-extensions/ http://blogs.adobe.com/standards/2013/06/19/adobe-support-fo... I haven't found a source that details Apple's plan.

skywhopper 13y ago

The trend of vertical hyper-integration combined with Comcast's hegemony over broadband and gradual creeping loss of Net Neutrality means that we're gradually moving towards a less and less useful Internet. Unfortunately, whatever benefits these companies might reap in the long-term from wide-open media standards and net neutrality are too small or too uncertain to allow them to move towards openness. I hate to say it on this site, but government does have a role to play here in establishing rules for basic market fairness. Unfortunately, so far the government rules have all been in favor of the media industry and against consumers. Abolishing DRM and going strict on net neutrality are, I think, the two key pieces of the puzzle. Much of the other problems would quickly fall away. Stronger fair use and compulsory licensing across a broader spectrum of IP would also help.

skywhopper 13y ago

As far as TV support goes, no one should expect their TVs to handle streaming media for them. That was and is a terrible idea. A TV should be a monitor, end of story.

peterwwillis 13y ago

Oh hey. It's a bitchy consumer with entitlement issues. Fancy seeing one of those on HN. You know what ecosystem is nice? Earth's. Go outside and play in the snow for fuck's sake.

LeicaLatte 13y ago

What next? I want horses, not cars? Sorry but crapping about ecosystems is crapping on a fundamental construct of human organization.

tps12 13y ago

My car and phone both "have" Bluetooth, but I can't use them together because the car doesn't "support" the phone. Doesn't really make sense to me.

nayefc 13y ago

This sounds utopian but not practical; a typical dev-only mistakes with poor business perspective. How else will they make money? Making money is the most important thing, and without it, none of this would have existed.

qwerta 13y ago

I think basic problem is 'smart tv'. I got cheap android HDTV, it handles everything including flash videos and streaming from FTP server...

dredmorbius 13y ago

The relevant book to read on this topic is Varian and Shapiro's Information Rules. Aimed at companies, and written in the late 1990s, its concepts are now increasingly applicable to the consumer information/IT space. In particular it discusses lock-in, or what we're now calling "fucking ecosystems". http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Economy/dp/087584863X/ http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec...

lurkinggrue 13y ago

One reason I never buy drm'ed media.