I want Epic to win.
It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option.
It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.
You've made some statements there but provided no context. Why is it a bad thing? I've been on the platform since 2007 - the App Store has been around since 2008. To date, I have had exactly 0 issues. Annecdata for sure, but I'm clearly not the only one to have this experience.
I feel I could flip the question around, why is it a bad thing that users can use other sources to retrieve and download apps? This is already the default line of thinking with a PC.
Most people will not be taking advantage of this option; many won't download outside the IOS store, and many companies won't make a new storefront to get around 30%. because hosting a storefront is expensive. Fortnite took themselves off Google play and they likely lost a lot of sales. But that's on them to decide.
Why is it a bad thing to give a dev a choice of hosting powers? If you don't, they find loopholes that inconvenience the user regardless. e.g. you cannot sign up for Spotify or Netflix through your IOS device.
But you can just buy an android. What you can’t do, is break Apple and then still have an Apple option for those of us who really don’t want an android phone.
Edit: The OP expanded that the post was about the linked article... now my comment doesn't make too much sense.
If you say that about Milewki's talks then I don't agree. He does use Haskell notation a lot, but gives C examples as well and most of his arguments are based in category theory/general programming.
Anyway, I think that the series of talks linked in the GP are a must watch. Even for people that don't fully agree with the viewpoint of Category Theory being a "holly grail" the videos do provide a different point of understanding.
"Milewki's talks"? Don't know what he or that is. Nope, I was just trying to say, the linked article "Monadic I/O and Unix shell programming" was about Haskell (and Unix pipelines), and maybe I should have known that from the title, but didn't. And I had to stop reading after 2 lines because it assumed Haskell familiarity.
edit: Didn't see edited comment you mentioned until after I wrote that. Thanks.
Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is.
Does it benefit the consumer though? I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for.
[Google's response][1] to this ruling suggests they have data which confirms this:
> While some comparison shopping sites naturally want Google to show them more prominently, our data shows that people usually prefer links that take them directly to the products they want, not to websites where they have to repeat their searches.
As a consumer, I have (much) more trust that my interests are advanced by the EU than google.
This is an opinion which I don't feel the need to convert anyone to but I really don't understand the opposite view. Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?
This. Google's data just shows their interests happen to align with "what people usually prefer" this time, but we know that is not what motivates google. Not at all.
They have acted against "what people usually prefer" many, many times before when it was beneficial to their own interests.
Additionally, "what people usually prefer" is completely orthogonal to the EU antitrust ruling, which is about holding companies responsible for the power that comes with market dominance.
Companies don't really have ethics or humanity (the way people do), unless we force them to. "We" in this case refers to the whole of society, including the people making up the company. In particular as companies grow very large, even if the people making up the company are ethical, humane and good, THEY are still tasked to wrangle a wild beast that is mostly just hungry for profits, and try to steer it to do Good and not Bad because it doesn't see there is a difference. But even then, they can use help from the rest of society, and regulations can be part of this help.
Personally, as an EU citizen, I don't believe that Google is advancing my interests and rights, but I also don't believe that the EU commission dictating what Google can or cannot do based on who is lobbying and how much money is at stake has the consumer's best interests in mind. To me these fines seem motivated by money, not consumer rights.
+1. While adding billions to their coffers may not be the motivation, there's a ravenous appetite to figure out how to distribute wealth of this obscenely rich generation of multinationals. This reeks of an ineffectual political institution grasping for one of the few solutions it can implement.
on what is this based.
the EU commision distroyed roaming between EU members, and im pretty sure they had all the lobiying from mobile operators to not do it.
That's not what democracy is. Also the EU has been shamed as undemocratic since their representatives are not elected by popular vote. People do vote for who represents them as a country in the EU but I doubt any of them had a choice in the Google fine.
It's actually called authoritarianism - when pushing what government wants violates other people's rights to do business as they please even if it isn't criminal activity.
People like the guy you replied to would only start to question things, once the EU decides they cannot keep working the way they want to.
They live under some sort of bubble of selfishness, where they believe others have to change in order to do to what is best for them. Guess what, as long as Google is committing no crime, why should them?
Can someone explain why they believe google and other "emerging" power centers saveguard their interests better than the EU?
1. Because it's in their long term best interest to have a customer for life (No political cycle) so they are more incentivized than a politician would be to support the interest of the consumer.
2. They have a more insight into user desires and actions on a day to day basis, meaning they can predict and "nudge" users in directions that are mutually beneficial.
Re: 1) You might think that is in Google's best interest - but I'm not sure most previous behavior with handling anything from usenet (Google groups), via the rss reader through any number of other services Google has mismanaged or shut down.
It's in Google's best interest to make money. A large userbase and ubiquitous brand is part of that. User happiness is only one possible means to that end.
Finally, you seem to think that search users are Google's customers - as they don't pay anything to Google, they are a resource, or product - not a customer.
Google search is a loss-leader for Google ads - if there's no competition (say paying for product placement at these other sites) - Google gets a bigger share of the ad revenue.
I don't see what magical mechanism there is that would strongly push Google to care for the Google search users "best interest".
Finally, you seem to think that search users are Google's customers - as they don't pay anything to Google, they are a resource, or product - not a customer.
That set of users though is what this whole action from the EU is trying to protect. It's only marginally about the other businesses - the end goal is making sure the population of the EU is benefiting.
To that end I have yet to see where or how Google has proven they have the population's interest at mind than the government itself. Google has a much better track record than any government does at listening to the majority of a population's demands based on their behavior (yes even with the deprecation of groups/reader etc...) and responding with their products.
The EU or any other government does less for the population (relative to capabilities, obviously Google doesn't pave roads yet) than Google.
> (...) systematically favouring its own comparison shopping product in its general search results pages. The Commission's preliminary view is that such conduct infringes EU antitrust rules because it stifles competition and harms consumer (...)
> (...) [Google] may therefore artificially divert traffic from rival comparison shopping services and hinder their ability to compete on the market. The Commission is concerned that users do not necessarily see the most relevant results in response to queries - this is to the detriment of consumers, and stifles innovation.
The EU is concerned with regulating the market to favour competition. It's true the underlying implication is that a Free market is a Good market - and so by defending completion it's theorised that the consumer profits. (in my opinion that's a non-seqitor - but that's the principle underlying the EU).
Now you could argue for other models, claiming that the proletariat will be better off - under a strict redistribution model, under an unregulated market, under a monopoly - but don't put EU's cart in front of the horse: it has one principle, a regulated free market.
And I'm saying that not only does the government have a terrible track record, there is no evidence that this actually makes any difference to competition. All it does is show that the government can throw their "weight" around.
Nothing in the historical record of antitrust should make us confident that the court’s dismemberment of one of the most successful companies in history would increase competition.[1]
I'm against a free market precisely because the governments of Europe have a great track record in the periods they've adhered to "true" labour/socialist values. Universal healthcare, universal access to education, help with housing, regulations on the labour market - all things that have greatly improved lives of consumers.
Centralised power generally means a departure from direct democracy, and that's one reason why I'm not a fan of the EU.
For a great view into why a regulated market might just be better than an unregulated one, have read of:
Google users are not (in most cases) their customers but a product Google sells to their actual customers.
Google long term interest is to increase the margin of their product by increasing their dominance in multiple markets over multiple tiers.
If they do this by using their monopolistic power then they are in violation of the law even when by doing that they provide a service that some of their users see usable.
> Google users are not (in most cases) their customers but a product Google sells to their actual customers.
No, Google users are suppliers of a product (ad views) that Google sells to their customers. But they are suppliers that are paid via in-kind exchange (with Google services) rather than cash, which is exactly equivalent to being customers of Google services that pay with in-kind exchange rather than cash. So, in a very real sense, those users are customers.
Do Google users get slaughtered? I mean, that is why it's undesirable to be a chicken in a chicken farm, right? If it weren't for that, then choosing the farm you are on would be quite the desirable ability.
What if all that happened on chicken farms was one of their feathers got plucked once in awhile?
1) They are a quasi monopoly. The word you use to describe searching on the internet is "googling". Most of the phones on this planet run on their OS. So please...don't fool yourself.
2) Who's creating those desires? You think that the desire for millions of useless shit products that drive the global market are created by some neccesity deeply in our DNA? Or maybe by your free will? Or is this just the ad-industry stealing the attention from you and fitting you into a pretty tight frame of the optimal customer while preaching to you: "everybody/your idol loves this, you have to love it too".
Prediction in the age of advertising is just like advertising itself. A convenient lie.
Ok, and? The idea that monopoly is bad - ipso facto - is silly and monopolistic abuse of consumers is largely theoretical. Governments don't like monopolies because they challenge their power, and don't forget nearly every "bad" monopoly was the result of a government license to monopolize. The whole "Trust Busting" trope that underlies the anti-trust act was not because consumers were being hurt, it was a pissing match between the Government and Northern Securities Company [1]. Milton Friedman covered this well [2]
Who's creating those desires?
Companies, friends, acquaintances, media etc... it's not Google.
Or is this just the ad-industry stealing the attention...
Sure, are we debating the existence of an ad-market or Google? Cause I can assure you an ad market will exist irrespective of whatever Google does.
> Ok, and? The idea that monopoly is bad - ipso facto - is silly and monopolistic abuse of consumers is largely theoretical.
What?! Monopolies always abuse their power because they can. I live in a country where we still feel the bad influence of a former monopolist ISP (Telecom/T-Online). THEIR influence on the government hurts the customer and even customers of other ISPs. It even hurts the tax payer who may not even have internet because his money may flow into subsidies for them. For example: they recently started eating up net neutrality in Germany. Because they can.
One of the most misused powers of monopolies is dictating a price. Just like we had a few months ago also in Germany with the biggest breweries. Millions of customers have been cheated.
IT IS ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR. They pay for this. How you can tell something like that "silly" is beyond me.
You're talking about advertising pushing useless shit on people they wouldn't want? But they don't see the advertising until they've already searched for the item!
That's either some magical advertising that makes people search for things before they've seen it. Or you're wrong.
Or, you know, the intent and nature of most advertising is completely orthogonal to the circumstances and conditions of them appearing, the point stands, and you're not even nearing actually addressing it, just bumping over your own straw man.
And when I google for "an item", like "medium sized dog", for whatever reason that means I already...well, what? Want a dog? Maybe, likely not. Want whatever that particular ad is trying to peddle me with whatever shoddy means and rhetoric, because it might have to do with dogs, or merely claim it does? Nope.
Can you give an unbiased concrete example (eg. tainted baby formula, collapsed bridge, corrupted hard drive from virus) of something that has benefited google to the direct harm of one of it's users?
The biggest argument I've seen is that people don't like that they aggregate the data you give to them.
Really? Nobody benefits from AMP? I mean I get the complaints from developers and publishers, but even on HN I have seen support for AMP.
This goes to the broader point though that Google wants to service the end user better based on their feedback (most sites are too big/load too slowly), so they created something simple that gives end users a faster, better and cheaper (lower mobile data cost) solution.
In fact Google seems to be moving faster here because companies keep creating large websites to serve rich content that users find annoyingly slow.
As a user I like AMP. it loads faster than the normal bloated websites and doesn't freeze my device while megabytes upon megabytes of scripts try to run.
It's not about you and who you trust the most, it's about if this makes sense or not. The EU is not infallible, they are subject to political pressures and there have been enough of that in this case that they started asking the wrong questions and reached the inevitable wrong conclusions, which are easy to welcome since they serve their protectionist instincts.
Google is not a utility, it's not the water company nor the electric company, or even your ISP, it's essentially a website one which you are free to use or not and the price of admission and switching and opportunity costs are nil, same as for all competing websites, so dictating what Google's website can display and declaring it's contents illegal and worthy of billion dollar fines makes zero sense.
No. The cookie notices are the natural consequence of a bad policy driven by a good motivation. Well-meaning but stupid busybodies are cluttering up my world. See also: California prop 65 warnings.
The answer to your question is given by the EC decision:
> There are also high barriers to entry in these markets, in part because of network effects: the more consumers use a search engine, the more attractive it becomes to advertisers. The profits generated can then be used to attract even more consumers. Similarly, the data a search engine gathers about consumers can in turn be used to improve results.
Simply put, the EC believes that Google is a barrier to any viable competition, so there's no ability to develop a competitive service to Google's own.
Sounds like they're punishing commercial success, i.e. the goals of most public corporations.
Search has been Google's core competency since their inception, they were much smaller than the existing Search engines when they started out but were able to create a better product that users preferred and since that time they've been able to amass a wealth of knowledge, experience and resources. Of course any company is going to have a hard time trying to compete with them now, but I don't see why they need to be punished for executing so well on their core mission.
"""Market dominance is, as such, not illegal under EU antitrust rules. However, dominant companies have a special responsibility not to abuse their powerful market position by restricting competition, either in the market where they are dominant or in separate markets."""
It's not about "punishing" but it is about holding dominant companies responsible for handling the great power that comes with this dominance.
Companies don't usually do this by themselves because like you say, their goals are orthogonal to this.
Doesn't mean it's contrary to their goals (which would be "punishing", in a sense), but "commercial success" or profit just isn't a force that drives ethical behaviour and responsibility. It's not. Things would be so much easier if they were.
Well, I believe the court has considered their position and feels that "punishing" google is not a matter of commercial success but of anti trust law (the "companies don't have inner pressure to be moral" argument).
One's opinion as to whether the court is acting in good faith with regards to its mandate is a matter of faith, I'll concede that; I personnaly have more faith in our individual ability to reorient the court/EUs mandate than to exercise pressure on google/corporations who are filling the new power center that comes with the internet and mass information distribution.
Important correction its not the court its the commission. It seems similar to prosecutor handing down the sentence and burden of proof hence falls upon the accused
You mean just like they have forced millions of websites to show the "Warning: This site uses cookies" message (which arguably cost a fortune in compliance costs and user annyoance, but made no difference in the end)?
I would encourage a "follow the money" train of thought when thinking about this.
My question then becomes: if this money (the $2.7bn) did not accrue to the EU, or was not levied at all, do you still think the EU would still pursue this as ferociously as it has, just to protect the consumer?
> I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies in response to a product query is better for consumers than just showing them a listing of the products they actually searched for.
But that is not what google does. I just did a search for "samsung galaxy s8". Instead of the first result being a link to a Samsung page I got 3 results that where ads (one of them being for the new oneplus). How does that match the "show what people searched for"? The results where sorted by "how much money did google receive" instead of "what the user intended".
Regardless of what you're seeing though, ads are a necessary part of Google Search; it's how they make their money. IMO it's a little strange to be complaining that Google is showing you ads in your search results.
I mean, I don't expect Google to show the same results to everyone (this is what I get: http://imgur.com/a/go3pU ). Funny thing is that the results changed between my first and second query (there was another unrelated result before the first link to Samsung).
I'm not complaining about ads and this fine is not about ads. It is about Google favoring Google Shopping links instead of competitors even though Google Shopping was inferior when it started. Google basically pushed their product no matter how shitty it was.
If it were not for Google being a near monopoly in search this would not be a problem, but Google is a monopoly, so special rules apply to them.
It's possible for such tactics to be useful for consumers and still be an illegal use of their dominant market position.
Compare MS and the bundled Internet Explorer: Yes, it was more convenient for people not to be required to download a browser after installing the OS.
But imagine if MS had been successful, and Internet Explorer had emerged as the only browser: Do you think that would have been in the common interest? (hint: around that time, they tried to get .doc established as the standard, replacing HTML)
> Compare MS and the bundled Internet Explorer: Yes, it was more convenient for people not to be required to download a browser after installing the OS.
That was a non-issue, as OEMs were able (and did often) pre-install any number of software packages on top of Windows. The issue was MS telling them "if you preinstall Netscape Navigator, you won't get any more Windows licenses from us". Among other things that were unequivocally harmful to consumers.
In the words of another poster, it sounds MS was punished for being very successful!
The thing about anti-trust is that being a monopoly is allowed. What's not allowed is using a monopoly position to get a large advantage in another market.
I'm not understanding that. You can be very successful without trying to prevent your business partners from making their products better for their clients.
I disagree that bundling IE in Windows harmed customers. If anything, it's silly to insist that an OS shouldn't come with a browser, since practically everyone uses a browser.
What should or shouldn't come with an OS is not up to bureaucrats to decide.
Going back in time, you can just as well argue that bundling Notepad in Windows is "illegal" or "anticompetitive" or what have you because it might have killed the market for third-party text editors.
Isn't one of the big refrains here that competition always benefits the consumer?
This situation makes me think of the larger markets: We're wanting the short term benefit (Google prioritizing their results over others) at the expense of the long term benefit (healthy competition in the travel space).
I fail to see how showing links to search results pages from other companies is better for the consumer either. So why does Google do it?
Google is really smart, right? They've done some amazing things with search. Do we believe that Google doesn't know how to display those comparison search results page in a carousel like their own? Or is it that they don't want to?
Think about it for a second. What if Google did that, and they subjected their own comparison search results page to the same generic algorithm that they subjected everyone else's too?
Maybe it's too hard for Google. But they like standards: see AMP. So why not create some standard tags so everyone has a fair chance?
I don't know, it certainly looks like Google was exploiting its market dominance in general internet search to get a leg up in another industry without actually competing. That's not fair.
I feel it does benefit the consumer. You are assuming that google is going to show me the best search results etc for my query, while in reality they are displaying what suits them and their advertiser better.
Which is great for google, not exactly great for my interests however.
> Or you should be happy, that the EU actually uses their regulatory power to benefit the consumer no matter how big the company they're going against is.
So is the EU going to fine Apple for not allowing iPhone users to access third-party browsers?
At least Google doesn't force any lock-in with their platform here (the browser or search engine) - you're free to use any search engine you want.
I wouldn't be surprised if the commission would take a look at Apple in the future, but note that currently they are not dominant in the mobile market.
It is not platform vs. platform, it is iTunes vs. Playstore (not a monopoly, choice => no action needed) and Google Search vs. nobody essentially (overwhelming dominance, quasi monopoly => action needed).
I guess it is the "vast plume of gas" that the article mentions:
The star has been observed in many other wavelengths, particularly in the visible, infrared, and ultraviolet. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope astronomers discovered a vast plume of gas almost as large as our Solar System. Astronomers have also found a gigantic bubble that boils away on Betelgeuse’s surface.
IMO that is also true for Scala. And is something that gets criticized every single time I see a reference to Scala on the internet.
Yet very few people acknowledge that the problem these languages are trying to solve is complex and that the solution is not always pretty because of the interaction with the platform they're supposed to run on.
While developers might get "priority" immigration you still have more overhead compared to the "no fuss, just find a place to rent" deal those developers would get in other European countries.
For example, I would consider UK after brexit only if I get a substantially better deal than anywhere else in Europe. Otherwise it is just not worth going through the "immigration" process.
Well Martin also worked on scalac, with all its warts & problems, so you can't say that it will be better just because he's also working on it. :)
IMO much more important is the fact that Dotty is being developed after several years and iterations of scalac. Ideally this would mean that the problems to be solved, and the different ways to solve them are known. Dotty can do this without having a large legacy inherited code base. To me this is more important.
I think one of the best things about Dotty is that they now have a proven theory that the language works on top of (DOT calculus http://scala-lang.org/blog/2016/02/03/essence-of-scala.html). This has allowed them to remove some unsound things (and work around others in a sound way)
Have you heard any of his presentations on the new compiler architecture?
I'm incredibly impressed with the stewardship of Scala: they did a thorough assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of language and compiler and are working on a complete refoundation of the language semantics and a rewrite of the compiler while also steadily progressing along a multi year roadmap for the current compiler.
This is a good explanation about what partial unification means in terms of Scala. And also a pretty good explanation of what the supposed fix actually does.
