Comment by freedomben
1 year ago
Warning: Complete shots in the dark here so take with a truckload of salt
Watching Google's actions on Android over the past many years, they are clearly inching in one strategic direction, and that is toward being more iPhone like (i.e. locked down, user hostile, user distrusting, etc). There might be a few "two steps forward, one step back" points like the new Android terminal, but it feels like clear directional momentum away from user capabilities. It's an absolute shame too, because Google products could be hacker's delights (I mean owner-hackers, not grey/black hat).
In their defense they are far from alone. Since Apple proved that a closed and locked down model wouldn't affect sales (in fact you can use marketing spin to actually convince some people who are plenty tech savvy that they are better off having their own access to their device removed, a feat of mental gymnastics I still can't understand), the whole industry has moved heavily that direction.
The net result has been that I've become almost entirely disinterested in mobile phones and all the IoT things, which is a huge personal loss. It's not just disinterest, but is turning in to active hostility. I've started to hate my phone because of many of the things it can't do now (that it used to), though thanks to the proliferation and expectation of "always connected" I can't get away from it without suffering professional or social consequences that aren't worth it. It's become a required piece of equipment to function in everyday life, because of other parties. If I could go back to the days of a single landline phone in the house with maybe an emergency cell phone in the car, I truly think I would.
It didn't (and doesn't!) have to be this way Google. You have the market power to change this, and you wouldn't even have to do all that much. I get that big money interests (like DRM) are constantly pressuring you to remove user control and give it to them, but if you just said "no, our users are more important" they would just have to take it because they can't turn away 45 or 50% or whatever of the US market and 80+% of the global market.
I just hope that the rising generation of hackers will hear our stories from the glory days when compute was empowering to the owner of it, not restricting.
> I get that big money interests (like DRM) are constantly pressuring you to remove user control and give it to them, but if you just said "no, our users are more important" they would just have to take it because they can't turn away 45 or 50% or whatever of the US market and 80+% of the global market.
I'm not so sure of that, at least in the US anyway. Users would absolutely switch operating systems/mobile phones if one suddenly stopped playing Netflix, streaming music, or even working with banking apps. DRM interests have all the power here because if content platforms are pulled from a platform, that platform dies for the majority of the population.
The only way out is regulation - laws that mandate devices be open, and alternative app stores, side loading, root access, and alternative OSes are supported by order of law.
> Users would absolutely switch operating systems/mobile phones if one suddenly stopped playing Netflix, streaming music, or even working with banking apps. DRM interests have all the power here because if content platforms are pulled from a platform, that platform dies for the majority of the population.
Consider what happens if they actually do this. Millions of people have that phone platform and aren't going to buy a new phone for at least a couple years. Switching phone platforms is a large time investment for most people because all your stuff is on that platform's cloud services etc.
Meanwhile most of that stuff doesn't need a phone. You're watching Netflix on your big screen TV rather than your tiny pocket device most of the time, aren't you? Your bank has a website. So if it stopped working on your phone, you wouldn't immediately buy a new phone, you would just use the website. But now the streaming service and the bank are immediately getting millions of user complaints that their app is broken.
Either of the major platforms could also use any of the malicious compliance schemes they use for other things. Find some over-broad or unreasonable contractual provision in the "must supply DRM" agreement that you don't like anyway, point to it as a justification for making a change to the DRM system in the brand new version of the OS, and disable the DRM in the older versions of the OS that are on 95% of existing devices, blaming the services for putting that term in the contract and obligating you to do it.
Then the users don't have to switch platforms, they "only" have to buy a new device and can avoid the platform transition cost. For the ones who do, the vendor gets to sell more devices. For all the ones who don't, the DRM pushers still get millions of user complaints and a strong incentive to release the app without the DRM in it.
And if they do release the app without the DRM in it, now the new devices don't need the DRM either ("we found a vulnerability in the later version too and had to disable it as well"), and now the users have no reason to switch platforms over it so the DRM can stay gone forever.
This is the same problem the incumbent duopoly causes for all other app developers. And that's bad -- the duopoly should be broken up -- but it does currently exist, and it could, if it wanted to, use that to do something good. (You might also consider what would happen if they both decided to lose DRM at once.)
> blaming the services for putting that term in the contract and obligating you to do it.
I think you're vastly overestimating customers' willingness to listen and care about whose fault it is. In practice, if Netflix (or whatever other app) suddenly stopped working on Android phones, people using Android would complain about their phones being broken whilst their iPhone-using friends continue to use the app just fine.
The media companies know that they will win that game of chicken every time. It would take a concerted effort across tech companies to really take them down, and nobody is interested in waging that war because the cost of simply implementing DRM is too low for it to be worth the struggle and the risk.
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If you think regulation is the answer then why not use those regulatory powers to de-fang DRM and update copyright law. People gave up their right to make copies to incentivize publishers as that was that only way to get copies. Publishers are no longer necessary for this and people should be demanding their right to make copies back.
> Apple proved that a closed and locked down model wouldn't affect sales (in fact you can use marketing spin to actually convince some people who are plenty tech savvy that they are better off having their own access to their device removed, a feat of mental gymnastics I still can't understand), the whole industry has moved heavily that direction.
This is part that is unfortunate. You'd expect hacker types (folks who hang out here on HN) would be 100% behind an open-source operating system, and would freely allow a corporation burning money to make improvements to it.
Instead what you see is an odd (and counterintuitive) behavior of saying alternate app stores are bad, side loading is bad - mostly because of Apple's unique PR/Marketing spin.
> You'd expect hacker types (folks who hang out here on HN)
The hacker types are the riff-raff the venture capital firm put up with on their website about making money with software.
Whilst there are some seemingly unpaid Google defenders here today, I am always surprised how many people come out of the woodwork to defend whatever Apple chooses to do.
Ever since iOS and ipadOS came out, I haven’t had to do tech support or run malware removal software. A lot of my youth was wasted on that nonsense, and I see better uses of time.
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The problem with Android is that it’s something of a bad compromise. That one can’t just drop whichver ROM on whatever device undermines the whole thing, and unfortunately nobody in the industry with any kind of power is doing anything to try to fix that situation. I’m not even really sure that it can be fixed so long as smartphones are based around custom ARM boards. Attempts at truly open ARM-based smartphones all have a laundry list of problems mostly thanks to compenent vendors that won’t play nice with drivers and documentation (or if they do, it’s with SoCs so old as to not be remotely competitive).
Following that, I may as well benefit from an overall smoother user experience, better app selection, etc on iOS. It’s not open and doesn’t pretend to be.
I’m keeping my eyes open for a smart device analogue of x86 desktop PCs, though. It might be powered by an open RISC SoC design or maybe someone finally figures out how to make x86 work well in handhelds, I dunno, but the current situation isn’t it.
> The problem with Android is that it’s something of a bad compromise. That one can’t just drop whichver ROM on whatever device undermines the whole thing,
You used to be able to do exactly that with Nexus & Pixel. That you still chose to buy something that doesn't let you do anything just proves GP's point.
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> That one can’t just drop whichver ROM on whatever device undermines the whole thing, and unfortunately nobody in the industry with any kind of power is doing anything to try to fix that situation.
You're right, but Google could do this (and probably the only one who could do it).
> You'd expect hacker types (folks who hang out here on HN) would be 100% behind an open-source operating system
Nope
I work on embedded security which is why there is no IoT shit at home.
I am forced to be tech support for my family, which is why they have iPhones and why i support locked-down hardware - less pain for me removing sideloaded shit than when they had Android devices.
I am bored of maintaining things - i just want them to work, which is why my WRT54G is gone and I use UniFi gear.
And I am tired of "slightly annoying, but i am supporting open source", i just want my laptop to wake up from sleep every time and last a while day, which is why I use a MacBook.
If it was open source IN ADDITION to doing everything else i want, sure. Being open source by itself is NOT a feature i am willing to pay for with any inconvenience. And being locked down IS a convenience when you are managing devices for people with no digital hygiene (aka: family)
And if you were the one locking down what the phones could run, instead of the duopoly?
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