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0 pointsjhuni14y ago0 comments

> And on top of that they were pretty much the only search engine for the web for a long time, so much so that "google" has become synonymous with internet for the average user.

There are a variety of industries which can be classified as natural monopolies [1], examples of this include public utilities like water services, electricity, and telecommunications. It is too expensive for a competitor to arise in these industries, so it is most efficient to have a central distributor. I believe that utility computing is another example of this, which justifies Google's status. You also mentioned "all the flak they are getting," could you provide specifics?

> Because control of your computer includes control over your data.

I have complete control over my data, because I use entirely open systems based upon Linux, and in order to communicate my data over the internet I host my own personal server. At the same time, I am glad to have access to intelligent services provided by google, such as search and machine translation. These are helpful services, they don't hinder me in anyway.

On the other hand, if I choose to use Apple software, such as their iOS, I am entirely dependent upon Apple's every whim, and I am providing Apple with the opportunity to delete any of personal data. Similarily, if I host all of my personal data on external servers out of my control, like the ones controlled by Facebook, I will be just as disempowered. On the other hand, accepting assistance from intelligent services such as Google search is not a cause of any problems.

> And at last Apple's goal is to deliver easily usable, reliable and sexy hardware and software

Sure they create "sexy" products, but they present their sexy exterior to hide that they are doing evil things like restricting users with DRM. It would be totally ridiculous to have a motto like "do no evil."

> Again, you are mis-using words. Tyranny means they are alone and have all the control and are enforcing it brutally...

Apple does exert significant control over its subject computers through DRM [2], restrictive licensing [3], etc. I wouldn't necessarily say they enforce these restrictions "brutally." My use of the term tyranny to describe to describe Apple is partially inspired by the article On the Still-Undefeated Tyranny of Apple [4].

> There are lots of alternatives and on top of that

Could you show me what alternatives you are referring to? Are any of them free software? Do you think iTunes is acceptable just because there are some "alternatives" that are accepted well others, such as PyMusique, are unfairly shut down?

> And by doing this, they have shown how successful this way of distributing is thus finally they were allowed to drop the DRM.

Apple still uses DRM extensively today [2], even after they opened up their music player.

> Nothing was stolen here.

Which is why, if you look back I put a question mark after the term steal. I recognize that it is questionable what you might even qualify as stealing. The fact is Apple has a long history of taking other innovations from external sources (Xerox PARC, BSD, etc) and then being the ones to successfully market them. The real talent Apple has is for marketing and profiteering, not innovating.

> you make your own product choice and your own personal preferences to be something like a categorical imperative that you want to force on everyone despite the normative power of the factual.

Hang on there, I just a poor man, I can't force my ideas on anyone. The only thing I am advocating for here is to provide people with the freedom from being forced into things by big corporations like Apple and Microsoft.

You can get freedom from corporate forces by using free software operating systems, using Linux distributions such as Ubuntu or Android distributions such as Replicant.

> And I dare you, you show me a single contribution you have ever made to Linux? Or free software?

Yes, I have contributed to free software projects (e.g JSAN) but not as much as I would like to unfortunately, but I am still young, so I think still have time to do more. Check out my accounts on launchpad, github, etc.

https://launchpad.net/~jhuni-x

> See, here is the point: that is your borderline-religious opinion. Nobody really cares about this.

Plenty of people care about these, especially people and governments outside the U.S that don't want to be dependent upon American companies. [5] [6]

> there is absolutely no DRM on my Mac keeping me from doing whatever I want.

You blame me of being a "fandroid" for my support of Google's AI projects. Yet you a clearly a huge fan of Apple yourself considering that you claimed that their products are "sexy" and that they contain "absolutely no DRM." Now who is the one being ignorant?

[1] http://moneyterms.co.uk/natural-monopoly/

[2] http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple

[3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/03/iphone-developer-progr...

[4] http://www.loper-os.org/?p=316

[5] http://news.cnet.com/2009-11397_3-6245409.html

[6] http://www.redflag-linux.com/en/

0 comments

kahawe14y ago

> natural monopoly

You are constantly making completely false claims and you are wrongly using words and terms. Utility computing and grid computing has got nothing to do with google's search engine.

Internet search is in absolutely no way even remotely a "natural monopoly". I could set up my own search engine with a few bucks investment just like Larry and Sergey did plus nowadays storage is even cheaper.

> so it is most efficient to have a central distributor

So in case of Google it is a "good" monopoly because it will save costs???? Are you out of your mind? I don't pay for a google search like I pay for my kWh and google does not provide any public infrastructure. They feed off the internet and feed off on my data and make money that way. They are a company, not a utility.

> You also mentioned "all the flak they are getting," could you provide specifics?

Well for starters, look at all the "Apple=Nazi" bullshit and blind hatred this guy wrote: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=jhuni

> DRM

There is no DRM on my iMac or in my iTunes songs. I can export my photos, videos, contacts, my emails, my documents and everything else I have on my PCs and take it with me at any point. I am in control of everything that is going on on my PC here and I can also install lots of other OSs if I want that.

> evil things like restricting users with DRM

Well, you really must be smarter than everyone else because with a good 100 million iPhones sold, you would think MOST customers would have quickly dumped them as soon as they hit all those horrible road blocks you are seeing... but no, iphones keep selling and a lot of people enjoy using them. So they must have gotten something right for just that target audience.

You need to learn to accept that obviously apple does not care about some bean-foil deflector beanie defender of all developers who sees them as the worst kind of Naziscum. So needless to say, they won't be making any products for you whether you like it or not. There is nothing more to this discussion than that.

> Could you show me what alternatives you are referring to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_music_stor...

You need to plug the RIAA with your DRM hatred because they are (were) making those terms.

> PyMusique

Someone illegally reverse engineered a tool to hack around the RIAA-dictated DRM protection and you are wondering that apple plugged (had to plug) that hole? Go hate on the RIAA for that you. There is absolutely no justification that any company is required to open their services up to any third-party clients if they do not want it or as in this case aren't able to allow it. Do not bring this irrelevant argument up again. Ever.

> Apple still uses DRM extensively today

I have no drm on my imac or macbook pro.

> with the freedom from being forced into things by big corporations like Apple and Microsoft.

You are wrong. You are completely, utterly wrong. Neither apple nor microsoft forces people to use anything. If you don't like it, don't use it. You don't get it huh? You must really think you are so much smarter than everyone around you because you obviously believe you are in a position to question all those millions worldwide who decided to buy an apple product.

Back before apple could sell a single home-PC, there was pretty much only x86 and microsoft for pretty much all PCs. To this day GNU/Linux has obviously utterly failed to make it to the average user's desktop at large so people were stuck with Windows. At least apple could grab a few of those percents and bring a little bit of competition to that huge market. Look at the numbers:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Operating...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Smartphon...

Apple is looking at 10% share (less than 20% for mobiles), the rest is pretty much exclusively M$... Linux is at less than 3% total where they always were. This is no tyranny, this is not forcing nobody to use apple. You make it look like they own 99% of everything. Completely ridiculous and wrong.

If anything you should be thankful that at least there is a LITTLE bit of competition for M$ but you are probably much too ignorant, stuck up and also too young to remember the dark ages when there was nothing but M$ for most computer users.

> You blame me of being a "fandroid"

I blame you for mindlessly repeating retarded, false propaganda and for not seeing things for what they are. Apple has small market shares in everything they do. And I blame you for continuously thinking you know better than all those people who consciously decided to switch to Apple products and find that they like it.

> Yet you a clearly a huge fan of Apple

I am pretty much fluent on all windows, unix, linux and mac system as well as more exotic ones like Be. I really do not care much what I am using as long as it works reliably and comfortably enough. I have seen M$ go from horrible DOS to WinDOS to Vista and 7 and I have seen Atari and Commodore and I have seen Linux and BSD go from flipping every single kernel switch before compiling it myself to dragonfly and ubuntu and whatnot... and I have seen apple from their first little black and white interface to their very first "sexy" products to their switch to Intel and I have seen the iPod help them rise in popularity, then the popular macs and finally the iPhone and iPad. Trust me, I been around the block and I belong to no single camp. I "hate" companies like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle - real actual major players and true monopolists that make atrociously bad software. Not comparatively little fish like Apple.

Back in the day apple used to be so far ahead of x86 PCs it was ridiculous. Now they are Intels just the same. I am no apple fanboy, I like some of their stuff and they have made my life easier. But the one thing where I give Apple real credit is that they were the only ones to successfully bring actual competition to the PC market, even at just 10%. They were the only ones to date to give M$ a run for their money and make M$ finally look retarded, old and horrible. And they have CREATED the modern smartphone and tablet market, things that did not exist before. Finally all those average PC users have a real choice available and there is at least SOME competition which can only benefit all of us. So if you really hate big corps then you should shit on M$ and on google and thank the wolfram alphas and DDGs and also Apple in this world because they were the only ones who could stand up against a real monopoly.

And you know why Linux on the desktop failed to deliver this much needed competition? Because open source and free software is sadly full of ADHD attention whores and people who think they know it oh-so-much-better than the users and they will go to great length shitting on anyone who is just a little bit more successful than they are - which is exactly how I see you. All that choice and possibilities are great for us geeks, so is OS and FSF, but the average user doesn't care about gnome vs kde vs xfce and they don't care about compiling kernels or being able to browse the code. (Even you haven't!!!) They actually have a life that is NOT the computer and they just want to send an email and talk to their family at home, send them pictures and read something interesting online... and that is what apple has obviously delivered, otherwise they wouldn't have the success they currently have.

So it doesn't matter what PG or whoever says, apple's success has proven them all wrong and I can only say I am thankful for the bit of competition and a few neat gadgets that apple delivered.

You are just a troll.

jhuniOP14y ago

Dear kahawe,

Over 25 years ago, in the mid 1980s, Apple introduced the Macintosh and Microsoft introduced Windows. Taken together, Apple/Microsoft came to dominate the entire computing industry and they have largely maintained that status up to the present day.

Well they may have switched around in cycles between one another, to the point that it may have seemed that "there was nothing but M$ for most computer users" taken together they still had complete control. The phrase "if you don't like it, don't use it" didn't make any sense, because there were simply were no free alternatives for people to turn to.

Selecting between Apple/M$ is not a worthwhile choice, since they both use exactly the same bad practices. They both profit off of closed and restrictive platforms, and they are both against software freedom.

It is only in the last three years that people begun to be granted some freedom from the tyrannies of Apple and Microsoft. This started in 2004, when Ubuntu was released, and then it continued when in 2008 Android was released. In the last three years these two systems have matured to the point that now finally users have the choice of living free of Apple/M$.

The transition to these free alternatives was partially fueled by the need to save money admist our financial crisis, but that alone hasn't really displaced the dominance of these entrenched tyrannies because as you personally mentioned, Linux may still only be 3% of all web client operating systems. This is why it is necessary to have people like me who continue to fight against Apple and Microsoft and develop free alternatives.

Google has been one of our greatest allies in this battle. Google is a major proponent of open platforms, because Google needs platforms like the web that are open to searching. Google has further assisted our cause through their active development of Chromium and Android. Furthermore, Google provides many unmatched intelligent services such as search, machine translation, and intelligent prediction to everyone free of charge, not unlike a public service.

> google does not provide any public infrastructure

The fire department doesn't provide any public infrastructure either. It provides a public service. This is not unlike how our good friends at Google provide public services such as search and machine translation.

> I could set up my own search engine with a few bucks investment just like Larry and Sergey did plus nowadays storage is even cheaper.

Sure you could, and nobody would hear about it unless you further invested millions of dollars into it to acquire resources.

> So if you really hate big corps then you should shit on M$

I hate M$ just about as much as Apple, however, I tend to think of them together because taken as a group they inflicted untold evils on the computing industry for nearly 25 years.

> If anything you should be thankful that at least there is a LITTLE bit of competition for M$ but you are probably much too ignorant, stuck up and also too young to remember the dark ages when there was nothing but M$ for most computer users.

What makes you think that we are not still amidst such a dark age? Microsoft and Apple together still dominate most general purpose computers. As I explained above, I am not at all thankful of Apple's attempts to compete with Microsoft because they offer nothing I consider to be better.

Actually, as of Q3 2011, Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market capitalization, and the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit. Apple simply is not a "little fish" anymore. In fact, Apple/Microsoft have tyrannically controlled the computing industry for nearly 25 years.

> Not comparatively little fish like Apple.

What do you mean by "little fish"? Apple is a huge company and arguably the main opponent of computing freedom in the world today.

> Neither apple nor microsoft forces people to use anything.

As I explained above, Apple/Microsoft have controlled the computing industry for nearly 25 years. Computers have become an unavoidable part of life in developed countries, so people basically are forced to deal with them one way or another. Free alternatives have only recently begun to emerge, but they are still not widely available.

> So it doesn't matter what PG or whoever says, apple's success has proven them all wrong and I can only say I am thankful for the bit of competition and a few neat gadgets that apple delivered.

Thankfully, I don't take success in capitalism into account in my comparasions. I could care less about how successful Apple has been in capitalist societies, I want free, secure, and intelligent technologies. Apple and Microsoft aren't even beginning to work towards that goal and at least Google is.

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