As an engineer; I want homogeneity, interoperability and lower cost/effort to ship features. We can see that the market also wants this and that's probably why everything is now an Electron app.
As a consumer; I want an affordable, high quality product that supports all of the software/games I like to use.
The task of getting my MacBook to run Linux and play video games is massive on the part of Apple. I understand that interplay is intricate, complex and expensive to implement so it's not fair to force Apple to implement anything they don't want to - for instance have the government declare Vulcan a mandatory standard for all OSes.
As someone who values the freedom we have to innovate, I don't know what the right way to convince everyone to play nicely together is but ultimately it's about stimulating competition to drive innovation.
The current environment stifles innovation, either through ring fencing developers/users or adding a storefront/marketplace tax to distributing a product, killing new products before they get off the ground.
The Apple Silicon hardware is remarkable, but outside of web browsing, basic web development and video editing - it's artificially limited in it's capabilities.
Windows is a dumpster fire, holding onto market share due to its mammoth support for software and Microsoft won't improve Windows unless there is competition.
Perhaps the solution is not to force "platform" companies to build anything, but instead think of software like we did old school repairable hardware and implement regulations that require vendors to offer the equivalent of schematics.
Perhaps regulations that require platform developers to distribute their software/drivers under permissive open source licenses such that people can implement competing platforms. That way no one is compelled to do anything but if a disruptor (like say, SteamOS or Asahi) wants to compete, they can freely build a better product without needing to reverse engineer APIs and worry about getting sued.
Perhaps OS vendors be regulated such that they must offer a means for third party software to be run. That way developers could distribute for platforms through their own marketing efforts and the value proposition for OS marketplaces/app stores is a better ROI - rather than being "the only option"
Perhaps hardware should be regulated such that it's "jail-breakable". That way disruptors could offer competing platforms that are compatible with the original (like the ROMs available on some Android devices, or Ubuntu OS or something).
...Or maybe that would disincentivize the giants from building anything because there's nothing other than investing in innovation that would protect them from losing market share
I'm not advocating to open source all the things under GPL or something - feel free to keep Photoshop, Word and The Witcher 3 closed source - we just need some kind of balance that lets me, as a consumer, have choices so that the giants can fight it out and build the best products.
> As an engineer; I want homogeneity, interoperability and lower cost/effort to ship features.
And as an engineer you should know that the best products never come from a committee or standardization. Bluetooth is a shit show. Apple’s implementation on top of Bluetooth is remarkable.
> We can see that the market also wants this and that's probably why everything is now an Electron app.
Do you really want to cite Electron apps as an example of how great interoperability is?
> As someone who values the freedom we have to innovate, I don't know what the right way to convince everyone to play nicely together is but ultimately it's about stimulating competition to drive innovation.
You have all of the freedom you want. You can buy a PinePhone and a Framework laptop.
> The Apple Silicon hardware is remarkable, but outside of web browsing, basic web development and video editing - it's artificially limited in it's capabilities.
Yet millions of people use Macs for development of Android and iOS apps, music and video editing, basic productivity, etc.
> Perhaps OS vendors be regulated such that they must offer a means for third party software to be run. That way developers could distribute for platforms through their own marketing efforts and the value proposition for OS marketplaces/app stores is a better ROI - rather than being "the only option"
Or alternatively, people can use their own free will and choose a more “open” alternative.
> And as an engineer you should know that the best products never come from a committee or standardization.
That's literally my argument, lol
> Do you really want to cite Electron apps as an example of how great interoperability is?
Never said it was good, only that it's an example of the market driven need for platform interoperability of software.
My point was actually that Electron is bad and the fact that platform providers don't play well together is the reason why we, as consumers, must suffer Electron apps.
> Or alternatively, people can use their own free will and choose a more “open” alternative.
The idea is to stimulate competition, open or otherwise, to give consumers more choice and make startups/disruptors more likely to succeed. For instance, try install Uber on a PinePhone.
For example - it shouldn't require a multi-billion dollar company investing at a loss, risking lawsuits, to disrupt the gaming market away from Windows (Steam Deck).
> The Apple Silicon hardware is remarkable, but outside of web browsing, basic web development and video editing - it's artificially limited in it's capabilities.
- Gaming
- Containerisation
- Nested Virtualization
- CI/CD workflows building for MacOS and iOS targets
- CI/CD workflows running automated browser testing for Safari
Which could be remedied without regulations by Apple collaborating with existing projects attempting to make these things possible, something Apple refuses to do.
A lot of HN skews quite shockingly authoritarian, tho usually in a “no MY authority is the best, not <insert major one>” contraryism, and you’ll see a TON of alt-right talking points pop up.
Shouldn’t be a shock tho: HN skews American-style “libertarian” (just look how gooey it went over Andrew Yang & his nonsense) which is “very right wing but also likes weed” in practice.
You’ll also see a lot of semi-disguised Andrew Tate & Jordan Peterson nonsense if you spend enough time in the comments
Not everyone is like that of course, but it’s there. Very there.
Good luck at tearing apart things I can point to VOLUMINOUS real world examples of. Because, while Libertarians can talk a good game, their actual actions demonstrate what they are very clearly.
Your denial of reality to defend your ideology being one example itself. Face it: you’re just feeling emotional that your pet faith isn’t respected.
> It surprises me how willing much of the technical HN crowd is wanting the government to have more power.
They already have a monopoly on use of physical force and detention. There is no 'more power' to give them.
You are confusing 'enacting legislation' with 'giving power'. And anti-trust regulation would cover anti-competitive behavior (if we ever enforced it), so no legislation has to be enacted. It is only a matter of determining if it anti-competitive, which it appears not to be.
Rest easy, there are more impactful things to worry about than government overreach into the practices of huge society-shaping entities which are larger than most other nation's governments.
Note: When will a corporation become big enough that we concede that without the monopoly on force and detention it is a de-facto government? At that point can the libertarians give up the 'hands off corporate affairs' schtick?
There is nothing more dangerous than government power. The government has a monopoly on legalized violence.
> Note: When will a corporation become big enough that we concede that without the monopoly on force and detention it is a de-facto government? At that point can the libertarians give up the 'hands off corporate affairs' schtick
There is absolutely no BigTech company that I can’t use my own free will not to use.
Very few governments in the world have an absolute monopoly on violence. Most countries allow some private ownership of weapons, have self defense laws and/or have private security companies. Many countries also allow private mercenary forces that can operate outside their borders.
People like to assume that governments and corporations are inherently incompatible, but that’s just not true. A government is just whichever organization(s) has the most power within a geographical region and a company can very easily become the de facto government in an area if its power is unchecked.
From a contemporary perspective there are plenty of examples of large multinationals effectively controlling and directing smaller, less wealthy governments. Even in big countries with strong governments, the influence of large corporations on what laws get passed and how they are enforced can become significant.
The cool thing about BigTech these days is even if you don't use them, they still know about you, or you use them indirectly via other products and cloud services. They have their fingers in every proverbial pie.
Of course there isn't anything more dangerous than the government. That is the whole point of a monopoly on force and detention. If done properly it is used to keep people from harming others.
Also, the cell phone in your pocket broadcasts your location a few times a second, and the corporations with that data love working with the government.
Well, you aren't forced to live in a house or use a toilet or buy your food. If your conditions are 'forced' then I guess the bar is pretty damn low, but everyone I know wants to operate in modern society and to do that one requires the use of services run by large quasi-monopolistic corporations.
Do you think anyone is convinced by your simplistic rhetorical device?
Let's some questions which don't lead immediately to your 'thought-terminating cliche':
What does having a monolith contribute to society both in terms of value and innovation?
Are there examples where this ended up being beneficial?
Is it a good idea to allow the logical conclusion of free market capitalism be one monopolistic entity which has stifled or bought all competition? What do you think there is to gain by doing such a thing?
