Chatting (u/Chatting)

Chatting commented on DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/redm

Chatting · a year ago

This absolutely needs to happen.

The main problem is that, thanks to Chrome's massive market share, Google is in a position where they can effectively dictate the future of the Web as a platform.

We've already seen a few instances of this: Manifest v3 and FLoC/Privacy Sandbox, for example, were met with widespread opposition, but eventually they made their way into Chrome; WEI, on the other hand, was withdrawn due to backlash, but make no mistake, it will come back at some point.

The current state of Web standards can be summed up as: whatever Chrome does is the standard. The other browsers have to follow along, either because their modest market share doesn't afford them the luxury to be incompatible with Chrome, or because they're based on Chromium, so they hardly have a choice. The only exception is Apple, but let's be honest, they only do so because of their own business interests.

Ideally, Chrome/Chromium should be spun off as an independent non-profit foundation set up to act in the public interest. Obviously there would be trade-offs: a slower development cycle, new features taking longer to be shipped, etc. But in my opinion that's far preferrable to having Google continue to exert this level of control over the Web.

Unfortunately, the current administration has two months left in its term, so it's not going to happen.

Chatting commented on Simple Mobile Tools suite to be acquired by Israeli adware company github.com/SimpleMobileTo... · Posted by u/thunderbong

Chatting · 2 years ago

This is unethical.

I don't necessarily blame the developer for selling: I understand that some offers are difficult to refuse. But I absolutely do blame him for being dishonest to his users and contributors.

No one was told about this. People only found out about the sale by chance, because someone noticed that the Play Store listing details were changed and made a post on Reddit.

When confronted on GitHub, the developer gave evasive answers, citing vague and unrelated issues, such as "the quality of the Android ecosystem dropping".

I assume a lot of users bought these apps with the expectation that they were not infested with ads, data mining, dark patterns, etc. Most people have automatic updates enabled, and they will get all of the above shoved into their face before they can prevent it.

The value of these acquisitions is determined almost entirely by the userbase. The developer was only able to get this deal because of his users. At the very least, they deserved to be treated with some basic amount of respect.

Chatting commented on OpenAI's justification for why training data is fair use, not infringement [pdf] uspto.gov/sites/default/f... · Posted by u/sillysaurusx

Chatting · 2 years ago

"The fair use of a copyrighted work [...] for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

-- 17 U.S. Code § 107 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107)

I don't know how one can read this as an impartial observer and make an honest argument that OpenAI is in the right.

Their use of copyrighted material does not fit any of the purposes enumerated in the first paragraph; it fails criteria #1 because it is of a commercial nature; it fails criteria #2 because it includes all kinds of works; it fails criteria #3 because it's not limited to very small extracts; and it fails at criteria #4 because their products are already having an obvious effect on the market.

Chatting commented on Does anybody remember Google People qntm.org/person... · Posted by u/prakhar897

mike31fr · 2 years ago

Unrelated: does anybody remember Google Wave that was supposed to replace the Gmail experience?

Chatting · 2 years ago

FWIW, they donated the project to the Apache Foundation, so it is open source (albeit unmaintained).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave

https://github.com/apache/incubator-retired-wave

Chatting commented on Raspberry Pi 5 raspberrypi.com/products/... · Posted by u/chabes

Chatting · 2 years ago

I question whether it's wise to launch a new product before the supply chain issues which have plagued Raspberry Pi for years have been fully resolved.

Granted, the situation has improved slightly over the past few months. But you will still find Pi 4s out of stock more often than not.

The CEO said last year not to expect a Pi 5 in 2023, because they wanted to take the time to recover. Why the u-turn?

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/21/23520400/raspberry-pi-5-...

Chatting commented on We are retroactively dropping the iPhone’s repairability score ifixit.com/News/82493/we-... · Posted by u/fraXis

Chatting · 2 years ago

I don't find the "theft prevention" argument raised by many of the comments here particularly convincing.

If the concern is to prevent the resale of stolen devices or parts, Apple could simply provide users with a way to report the device as stolen (e.g. via iCloud.com), which would put the serial numbers of both the device and its parts into a blacklist. Problem solved.

Instead, the current system effectively assumes that ALL parts coming from a different device must've been "illegally obtained", which is nonsense.

You can do theft prevention without actively making independent repair shops' lives miserable. But Apple's goal is to make independent repair shops' lives miserable; theft is just a pretext. Just look at their track record, from the humble pentalobe screw all the way to the repair program NDAs.

Chatting commented on Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max apple.com/newsroom/2023/0... · Posted by u/jnieminen

internetter · 3 years ago

To be fair, steam offers a massive amount of goodies on top, including a built in mod store, tools for multiplayer, forums, and many more. I'd argue that the platform is worth at least 10% if used to it's fullest (and after a certain threshold the 30% goes down anyway — though imo it should start low for small studios)

The same cannot be said for the app store. Save from basic DRM (steam has this), leaderboards (steam has this) & achievements (steam has this), you get much less for that cut.

Chatting · 3 years ago

Plus, as a developer, you're not required to go through Steam, if you don't think it's worth it.

There are plenty of other options (Epic Games, Microsoft Store, etc.), each with a different revenue share arrangement. Or you can self-publish on your own website and infrastructure (Minecraft did this and it worked out pretty well for them).

Most developers (not all!) clearly have decided that the value Steam provides (features+audience) is worth it. But, crucially, with Steam, it's a choice. With iOS, it's not. You are forced to go through the App Store whether you like it or not (for now, at least). And if tomorrow Apple decides that 30% is not enough and they'd like a bit more, there's not much you can do about it.

(Apologies if this is not terribly relevant to the rest of the thread, but it bugs me when I see this kind of "apples to apples" comparisons between Steam and the App Store)