Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

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> Device freedom is a must. Any device should be completely controllable by the end user.

I have the choice of buying a completely controllable android device if I want to install mystery apps willy-nilly. I'm not interested in that, and there are millions like me. I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check.

This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet. Apple doesn't want to be Firefox, and I don't blame them.

I want my phone to be like a Nintendo, I don't really care about the freedom to install any random code I download (even though I really could if I wanted to install something I built locally with XCode). First and foremost I want developers to be terrified of getting their publishing privileges yanked if they step out of line.

So, let’s apply this same logic to accessibility. Let’s say the government says “devices must have voice over functionality”. Ok, great. Apple puts that as an option, and we’re done.

The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default, and much like blind people, people who care about controlling their device are given that option, too.

What you’re arguing is akin to saying, “I’m not blind, so Apple shouldn’t ever even have a Voice Over option, because it’s not my preference, even if it’s just in the settings”.

There’s a false dichotomy - Apple can still keep it locked down by default. You still get your device just as safe and sound. And much like accessibility settings, most people wouldn’t bother to find the setting, and if they did, they would have a big warning (and of course Apple could have another big warning on every install, as well as keep all their sand boxing and permissions access rules active).

There’s no loser here. If grandma digs deep into the settings and ignores multiple warnings, it seems she is proficient enough to take on the risk. Forcing blind people to not have any voice over because grandma may accidentally turn it on and have a bad outcome is a weak argument.

> The same applies for if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”.

I don't like the idea that the government can force you to build things you don't want to build. If I don't want to build a general purpose computing device, why should the government be able to force me to?

There's a compelling argument for requiring building in handicapped-accessible features, but that is relevant to the equal protection clause of the constitution. There's no implied constitutional right to general-purpose computing.

> I don't like the idea that the government can force you to build things you don't want to build.

Oh but you do. Otherwise you'd choose to live in a country without a food code or electrical code or engineering standards for roads and bridges.

Public Heath and safety standards are irrelevant to product features, which is what we're taking about here.

How are health and safety standards irrelevant to product features?

Better question: how are they at all relevant? The health and safety regulations are proscriptive: you must not harm consumers. On the other hand, product features are creative expression. It would be like the government telling you that your novel must include at least three references to other writers' works.

Anti-trust is about anti-competitive practices and consumer benefit. Carterfone and Microsoft are possibly the most relevant examples. Google and Apple are a duopoly in the phone market, and Apple's (and Google's in the case of Epic) behaviour towards these companies could be seen as anti-competitive.

If you want to run a platform business, you'll need to be mindful of anti-trust law more than anything else. The Apple platform is perfectly capable of anti-competitive behaviour given it's market share, and doubly so given Apple and Google control 99% of the phone market.

Our justice system is good at drawing squiggly lines. It’s luckily based on intent and outcome and not exact wording.

There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve out a class of devices as “general purpose computing devices” which would exclude fine homemade / artisanal / hyper-focused kindles, gaming consoles, etc. of course these lines get moved around and tested in many ways. Much like how assault weapons are hard to define, and yet regulated in many places.

But laws like this exist all over, and many do great good for the common cause. Accessibility is one example.

If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. We have laws on return policies, lemons, telephone usage, and all sorts of consumer driven things. There’s plenty of indirect precedent.

> If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent.

If this was really such a boon, wouldn't the devices where you can already do this have a huge market advantage? If so then why are we talking about forcing it on consumers and manufacturers?

Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why.

I’m certain there would be a new generation of startups especially focused on selling digital goods.

Further, you need to look at incentives. Apple would almost certainly respond by lowering their fees as a move to stay competitive. That extra cash trickling downstream would enrich many more people, who then would go on to create new things.

Not sure you have an argument that it would already have happened if it was so much better.

> Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why.

If the vast majority of devices already have this capability, what difference is it really going to make forcing it on the remaining 20%? Why hasn't Apple already been forced to lower their fees if they are the underdog in terms of market share? For that matter, why hasn't Google been forced to, given how easy it is to sideload?

I think you've moved the goalposts quite a bit in this thread and I've engaged just to refute the sub-points, but the main points stand.

Apple has dominance in many markets, like the US. In fact you could say the reason Android has such global market-share is because they commoditized their OS, ie, allowing for competition to drive down prices. So you're claiming the same forces wouldn't affect software? Android apps are generally cheaper, as well, though it's hard to pin why. The general principle of competition = lower prices applies here.

I'd rather debate on what's right for consumers not whether some technical definition of a monopoly applies or anything like that. But to be honest there's not much more to be said - if you are against the legislation, then fine, it's a perfectly valid opinion. I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.

> I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.

This seems on the surface to be the libertarian position, but imho it's subtly authoritarian - you weren't able to convince most people to use the freely available unlocked hardware you're advocating for, so instead you'd like to use the full force of the law to make all product designers create what you want them to create. If the benefits of unlocked hardware were so evident, surely the consumers would already be reaping the rewards on the unlocked hardware they can buy right now?

That’s not how lock-in works, and you’re trying to go back to free market libertarian philosophy. Handicap elevators , building codes, emissions standards are “authoritarian”.

Libertarian philosophy is maybe the least compelling of them all in my opinion.

> Handicap elevators , building codes, emissions standards are “authoritarian”

Safety and accessibility are human needs, and regulating markets to address those needs is a completely reasonable requirement.

Forcing product designers by legislative fiat to add a cool feature you want, on the other hand, is pretty authoritarian. Nothing is stopping you from buying a general purpose computing device right now, or building one and selling it.

Two of the top 10 biggest companies in america captured 99% of the market, there’s something pretty big stopping me.

You’d have been pro Bell I guess back in the day. “What’s stopping you from building a competing telephone service?” Oh only not having capital > all VC investments made in any given year.

> Two of the top 10 biggest companies in america captured 99% of the market, there’s something pretty big stopping me.

Correct - and Google's very popular, but not dominant OS will already let you sideload whatever code you like, which is a big part of why you'd have a hard time competing. I'm sorry, running arbitrary code on your daily driver phone is just not the game-changing feature you're making it out to be.

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure it is relevant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, not the Constitution.

I think that was an analogy where Apple was the government

Apps will simply require users to enable this "unlock device" setting.

And people just do whatever the app says since they assume Apple has vetted it.

Then epic games, netflix, spotify and several other apps will have a tutorial on how to remove the lock, so that they can install the app or alternative appstores. And if apple makes it incredibly difficult to remove the lock, then company like Epic will sue again for making it so difficult to install 3rd party app stores (eg: Google play store)

> if the government said “you have a right to install apps of your choice”. Apple adds a setting in the settings menu. You still get your locked down device by default,

Users will just flip it off for the first evil app they told to install by friends. Think about 95% of all users.

It’s still sandboxed. What evil thing would it be doing?

Do you need the outside app to have access to bluetooth, location, storage etc? And if apple restricts the storage, then a company will sue apple again for the restrictions saying that the iOS photos app have unrestricted access to photos, whereas an outside app doesn't.

Apple sandboxes each thing granularly. Even with photos you can choose to only let the app see just the photo you pick.

Isn’t one of the points Epic is suing Google for because Google has a ton of warnings when side loading? I’m curious if there is a middle ground where grandma is protected but developers don’t feel they are described as potential malware.

Except that DRM is legal, and Apple devices are consoles / appliances: "What's a computer?"

you cannot apply the same logic to something entirely different

> This situation is much like the browser nightmares of the past, where Firefox users complained that the browser was slow. People didn't really take into account that the slowness wasn't fault of Firefox, but of the zillion janky browser extensions people freely installed. Chrome came along, and people were wowed by how fast it was, not realizing it was 'fast' because they hadn't installed 47 browser extensions yet.

Not really relevant to your point, but Chrome was legitimately faster than Firefox for a long time. It wasn't just extension bloat, V8 was a huge leap in JS speed and Chrome optimized the hell out of rendering. Firefox wasn't able to bridge that gap until their recent Quantum initiative.

> I want a locked-down device that keeps developers in check.

That's fine but how does from that statement follow that it's a good idea to let Apple do it to everyone? You don't want things, that's fine, don't get them. Nobody is asking to add anything to the things you already like, ruining them for you. People are asking for freedom of choice.

It's like saying you want to live under permanent surveillance, which you can do, you can have a security company install a camera in every room of your house, but why does that need to apply to the entire city block?

How are you worse off if Apple is required to say, allow third party app stores, which you don't need to touch? In the same vein, why was Firefox ruined for you by addons if you didn't need to install any?

> I have the choice

A lot of people don't or aren't even aware of the dangers of walled gardens. Like it or not goverments job is to regulate and protect people and the economy: be it monopolies, user data or anti-competitive practices.

Libertarians aren't ios target, it's average casual tech ignorant people who'll blindly trusts the system because they don't care.

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