of course google wants every developers id the second they get into bed with a fascist federal government
I’m bothered that big companies, especially tech right now, no longer see their customers as people they need to please to stay in business, but instead as something they’ll inconvenience and squeeze as much as they can possibly get away with.
They all got to where they are making, at one point, amazing products. Now? Fuck making windows useful, we can throw ads and AI at you every place we can think of. Fuck all of the parts of Android that made it stand out, we tell you what to install. You don’t want all of your data scraped and sold? Fuck you, there’s 3 of us and we’re all doing it. In fact we’ll never stop finding new ways to harvest data.
Phones have basically stagnated entirely in the US. Sure you get moderately better chipsets, but what else? AI? I haven’t had a phone struggle with anything in… maybe 10 years. Instead features that people didn’t use enough just get removed.
I feel like this is the new normal cycle of every software company. Once they become a leader, it’s never enough. It replicates the rise of billionaires. Just as the billionaires being rich beyond anything they and all of their succeeding generations could ever spend is not enough, being the industry leader and producing an amazing product that people want is somehow not enough. It always turns to control and power.
Are we already nostalgic for analog oligarchy?
I came here specifically to ask about alternatives to Android now that google is becoming too abusive in the relationship.
Time to back to the analog world and short wave radios.
As shitty as M$ is, it would have been nice to see Windows phone become moderately successful and be a third primary mobile os.
The year of the Linux mobile is coming.
Fuck them. I have a guitar a pocket watch and a wind uo radio. Everything have is a nicety.
now it’s just a race for the giant conglomerates to make the worst decisions for consumers
Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to live in this damn Orwellian society that is coming?
okay well goodbye Google, then
what’s the alternative here?
I’m not giving up my off the market pixel dungeon mods.
The EU’s been breathing down Apple’s neck for them trying to do similar shit, so i find the timing kinda weird.
Plus they’d need to force-update their spyware first, i wonder how many versions of android they’re willing to go back.I think the update is already installed, just waiting for the kill switch.
Yet Apple has been able to profit from their walled garden for decades now. Doesn’t that set a precedent that it’s okay? I honestly don’t blame Google for going this route—it’s inaction from our policymakers that has created the space for abuse.
The EU has been targeting Apple for years now for not allowing sideloading (the whole Fortnite drama) and ruled that no, Apple can’t bar users from installing shit.
When our policymakers take direction from capitalists, it’s ok to blame to capitalists.
Yeah I was going to say it’s better to blame the policy makers but who the fuck cares? Neither side of that coin does.
Interesting perspective. So the suggestion is to redirect our blame away from our elected representatives or even from electing representatives that run on a campaign that aligns with our priorities.
There’s more than enough blame to go around. It’s not a zero sum game.
I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion based on what I wrote, but my suggestion is to not let companies escape consequences for shitty things they do simply because regulators fail to be effective at their jobs. Legally allowed is not the same as morally acceptable.
Fuck google
Easily the most disgusting company in the planet and it’s funny that their old motto/slogan was ”Don’t be evil”.
Sounds like you’re not familiar with Oracle…
One rich asshole called Larry Ellison…?
I’ve recently gotten to think that the company which made the basement for all these disgusting companies is usually viewed as not just not disgusting, but almost holy. Meaning Sun. So, maybe, judging the tree by its fruits, the most disgusting company was Sun.
I mean, I know that everyone who used their products and of course people who worked there are still in awe and remember it like a Soviet summer camp shown in the Everlasting Summer game.
But perhaps that’s misguided. They’ve built the hierarchical systems, the infrastructure, for all the dystopia of today, and their code still powers much of it.
Also you know how the second competitor in an almost monopolized market is sometimes considered an accomplice of monopoly? Because they are strong enough to support some of its ways, while the rest are not. So they reinforce it. I’m also looking at Firefox writing this. Literally.
Perhaps we’d have a better environment office-wise if LibreOffice and OpenOffice were not a thing. They support MS formats, thus indirectly contributing to MS dominance. The network effects work in a few different ways, while were it different, those desperately needing MS documents would use MSO, at the same time those just needing some office suite would possibly not.
Perhaps that can also be applied to Unix and Unix-likes, Sun made a lot of momentum for Unix and Unix-like desktops when they contributed to TCL/Tk so that it became a tool for making Unix and Unix-like desktop applications easily. And when they created Java and Java applets in web browsers prepared the public for scripts in browsers and cross-platform applications served over net.
Yes, it all felt like heaven behind the corner, but perhaps they are to blame. What if.
After all, much of that was free or for the cost of a CD then, and free cheese usually is part of a trap. Perhaps if instead commercial competing platforms, like Amiga or even Apple, were to gain more following, we’d have a different world. All those development resources couldn’t have been gifted (Sun in the 90s, I mean, and honestly many universities) out of nowhere, something made that worth the expense.
Or, if we want free and open, Lisp environments are somewhat easier to hack on (also again about TCL, it kinda approaches that in convenience for a non-programmer to make something simple, quick and dirty, but good enough), and accessibility to wider, eh, masses is meaningful here. So maybe GNU shouldn’t have gone with a Unix-like system idea. I mean, OK, they do have a Lisp environment fit for everything, it’s called Emacs.
BTW, about disgusting companies coming to mind first, I’m not disgusted by Oracle, in comparison to most other big ones they do honest business. I dunno why they are hated, uncle Larry says dystopian shit with enthusiasm and no remorse, but at the same time his company sells exactly what it advertises. It’s all kinda open and straightforward, it’s the “one rich asshole called Larry Ellison” company, which may not be what someone likes, but is certainly better than companies actively building worldwide digital fascism (it, of course, offers expertise and help to those who do in case they need it). Also he’s really a self-made man. Unlike all those other types from good families, good environments and with good education.
OK. I just have that conspiracy theory brewing in my mind about Sun actually being evil. Sorry.
