You have to hand it to the Irish. As a plan to collect more tax in the long term, offering (effectively) tax free status by not enforcing "Double Irish w/ Dutch Sandwich", to attract big players, letting them dig themselves into tax-debt holes for a few years while letting them feel they will get off scott-free, then enforcing it and securing a deal to get back-taxes paid, is pretty genius. Very stable genius to help rebuild their economy that was pretty crushed after 2008.
Ireland is not "enforcing" anything; the European Commission are the party that ruled that Apple received unfair tax treatment. Both Apple and the Irish government are appealing that ruling.
Yeah, sure. That was a condition by IE of the EU bringing this ruling. "You have to make us look culpable as well, it's just better for business." You really don't think that's how it works? You're too naive!
Come on. IE is not double dealing to the EU for a bit of kick back somehow? Of course they are. That EU is "forcing" them is hilarious. IE loves to play a fake victim if they can, and in this case, all the better to be open for business. "Oh, EU, please stop getting me to get Apple to pay me taxes. Please stop making me collect revenue." Said no state ever. But believe their fake victim tale if you want. The Irish are clearly too clever for you!
Nationalistic flamewars, which this crosses into, are definitely not ok on HN. Please don't post like this again, and avoid unsubstantive comments on divisive topics generally. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I tried to ignore it but I cannot - this is a ugly comment. And for hackernews it's devoid of fact or even interesting opinion. It uses a familiar tactic commonly associated with bigots: don't agree that there's a global Zionist conspiracy to rule the world? - the Jews are clearly too clever for you. Don't believe that the Roma are immigrating en-mass with the plan to displace the natives? - the Gypsies are too clever for you. Rounded off with the suggestion that the Irish as a whole have obvious negative personality traits.
And your theory is as outlandish as any global Jewish conspiracy stuff. An entire nation of people from across the political and social spectrum have connived to defraud the rest of the world based on a sneaky tax-policy plan enacted over 3 decades ago which has survived 2 European treaties, 5 changes of government and requires the entirity of the "Irish" to be liars. It's an ugly comment with even uglier undertones.
Actually, the revenue won't end up in ireland. All member states will send a bill to ireland, and ireland will split up the money to them (based on Apple's relative sales around Europe).
That is interesting. There has to be a way that IE gets a significant cut from the Apple money tho. I'd be very surprised if there wasn't. That or in future the recompensated EU members agree to invest more in IE.
The EU has rules. What govt would invest in ireland? How - what instrument of govt? That's not going to happen. The commission will issue a ruling on the destination of the revenue and that will be that.
Come on about rules tho, man. History is messy. People are stupid and evil ( as well as good, obviously ). We live in an age where we have a great pretence of goodness, but really our nature is the same. I'm sure there a lot of double dealing happening behind the veneer of rules. And I think you're naive/uneducated in history if you think not.
I assume Apple sells a lot here - the tech community, at least in Dublin, is enormous and Apple seems to be extremely popular among geeks, which, it seems, are a sizeable part of the overall population.
But if there's no accountability, then what's the point in publishing it?
They will execute against their published (or private) policies, and there's no external oversight or way to get them to comply with anything other than what they decide are the standards.
It's not a democratic system. It's a private, totalitarian censorship enforced by a corporation with a clear liberal-politics bias ( why? because that's where they think most of their resources are tied up -- their advertisers' liberal city-dwelling customers are wealthier and thus more important than conservative, poorer country folk, and their worker drones -- mostly Cali based -- so FB staff will be predominantly liberal. )
Obviously, it's up to each site's specific TOS. Tons of sites explicitly call out scrapers and non-human/automated means of accessing the site. You might debate over definitions and intent, but ultimately it's up to the site owners when they say, "you know what? X _is_ against the ToS and we're just gonna ban anyone doing it"; users won't/don't have any recourse to argue their point.
For example, here's a few relevant parts for the top sites on Phantom Buster:
>These terms govern your collection of data from Facebook through automated means, such as through harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers ("Automated Data Collection"), as well as your use of that data. You will not engage in Automated Data Collection without Facebook's express written permission.
>We prohibit crawling, scraping, caching or otherwise accessing any content on the Service via automated means, including but not limited to, user profiles and photos (except as may be the result of standard search engine protocols or technologies used by a search engine with Instagram's express consent).
> In order to protect our members’ data and our website, we don't permit the use of any third party software, including "crawlers", bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions (also called "add-ons"), that scrapes, modifies the appearance of, or automates activity on LinkedIn’s website.
I'd give a read through each of the APIs offered and make sure that users know 1) your service has the potential to get accounts banned for use, and 2) since the service is on behalf of the user's accounts, it'll be their accounts getting banned if the websites ban anyone.
FWIW I wrote this comment while watching a bot (that I wrote) play a game on my behalf on a second monitor. :)
LinkedIn example tho: I think an interesting argument could be made that they should be blocking accessibility extensions / tools. Since these ( to some extent ) modify and automate UX.
I guess the question in the end is not terms. It is enforcement. Clearly ToS do not cover all cases, and even tho LI ToS say "Thou shalt not scrape" the courts adjudicated differently. So what matters is -- what is enforceable and actually enforced?
The issue of acting as "agent" for user is very important. I don't think the current way this tool does it is OK, because banning is a bad thing. Maybe there is a better way to set it up. Or maybe I'm wrong.
I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state.
When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly.
I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concentration, or whatever else. Very simple.
Can you lucid dream/OBE? Was it possible to learn?
Lucid dreaming is a skill. There's varying levels of experience and control that can be exerted via different methods. It comes naturally to some people, but is very much also a learnable skill (to varying degrees of difficulty for different people).
I spent about a month practicing methods to lucid dream before being able to achieve a few lucid dreams over a couple weeks. It became difficult for me to keep up some of the exercises in order to do so (such as waking up to write down my dreams in my dream journal in the middle of the night would interrupt my wife's sleep). It can be time-consuming for some people as well, as learners benefit from being able to get 7.5+ hours of sleep each night. I still attempt to lucid dream when convenient, but I don't practice every day like I used to.
Great resources to get started with learning lucid dreaming:
- Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. & Howard Rheingold
If you find yourself semi-lucid within a dream, it's beneficial to immediately try to "anchor" yourself in your surroundings, by slowing turning around in-place, touching yourself, smelling things; activate all of your senses and your grounding to the dream will be much stronger allowing you to stay lucid and control the narrative.
Huh. I should try that next time. I rarely realize I'm in a dream (that I can remember), and whenever I do ... I just try to make out with everyone. It's a lot harder than you'd think! At least for me, even when I realize I'm in a dream, it becomes incredibly difficult to direct anything that's happening.
A good way to realise you’re dreaming is to look for “dream tells”, which vary from person to person but often include: text being hard to read, clocks showing the wrong time, mirrors not working quite right, not being able to remember how you got where you are, things changing appearance when you look away and look back, that sort of thing.
Unless you’re well practiced with lucid dreaming, you probably won’t be able to exert direct control—either your efforts simply won’t work, or you’ll wake yourself up. A useful technique I use is to think something along the lines of “Oh, of course this is what will happen next” and it often does—the structure of the dream is often driven by your expectations and beliefs of how things ought to operate. Poke around and try stuff to see what works for you! :)
The clock/text thing works really well for me. I’ll read a line of text, look away, then read it again. If it seems to have changed, I’m dreaming. Same thing with the clock. If it behaves erratically, I’m probably dreaming.
I've had 2 very lucid dreams (when I was in high school and had a crush on this one girl) and in both I tried to make out with her and stuff but woke up right before anything good happened. Damn excitement. lol
When I was learning how to lucid dream, one of the triggers that I used to tell I was in a dream was flipping a light switch on and off. When I saw nothing happened, I knew it was a dream.
Another big one I use is looking at any words, numbers or clocks to see if they were legit, or random characters / garbage.
I started to "feel" what a lucid dream was because I would get some nightmares that would eventually wake me up. It felt real and I could remember everything about it (for a few minutes). The big ones always involved me falling from a building, and waking up once I hit the pavement.
Over time, I forced myself to try to mostly stay asleep during these nightmares. I remember falling from stuff, hitting the pavement, waking up, but keeping my eyes closed and trying to keep from waking up. It got to the point where I would "half" wake up, but still be in the nightmares. Then with some practice, I could do that to normal dreams too.
I can't really do it on demand, so it's more if I am having a crazy dream, I can usually snap out of it and fully control everything about it.
I once was having dinner with a girl and the topic of conversation drifted to dreams and how one might tell if one is in an "Inception" type scenario. I used the menu as an example-- read a line from the menu, close the booklet, reopen and reread the same line. I told her if the two lines aren't the same line, you're dreaming (the rendering hardware in your brain apparently uses different PRNG seeds for procedural texture generation).
I paused awkwardly as I realized that items in the menu kept changing each time I reread them.
She was very offended when I told her she was a figment of my imagination.
I like your explanation for changing lines of text, but I don't think brain is actively generating any content. I think brain is just trying its best to apply daytime pattern recognition to un-orchestrated neural activity. The most recently learned patterns are the strongest, which is why often you'll dream stuff that happened that day. If you spend a lot of time performing single activity (like gaming), the dream will be intensive and focused; this is called the Tetris effect.
Poke one finger of one hand into the palm of the other. If you are dreaming, the flesh will yield like putty, and your finger will go through. This also works most of the time with windows, and sometimes with walls.
Pinch your nose, close your mouth, and try to breathe. If you are dreaming, you will be able to inhale and exhale without any conceivable path for the air to flow. Also works if you are underwater.
Light switches always do something in my dreams. It might not be turning the lights on and off, but a thing happens when I flip the switch. (One time, it made some rabbits explode. That was fascinating, and I blew them all up one by one, and then felt guilty about it after I woke up.) Although most of the time, my dreams don't even have light switches, and I don't notice when they are absent from places where they should be, according to building codes.
I almost always have hands and a face, and the ability to move, so the two tricks above usually work.
"Pinch your nose, close your mouth, and try to breathe. If you are dreaming, you will be able to inhale and exhale without any conceivable path for the air to flow. Also works if you are underwater."
That has happened to me before! It was more an accident of experimenting around in a lucid dream. I didn't think anything further of it. You're right, though, that it should be a default technique since you can close your mouth and attempt to breath in about any dream situation. Thanks a lot!
> When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly.
I relate to this on a spiritual level. When I was a child, I would go around the house and set all the switchs to that "in-between" state.
Its funny you say that one twchnique for lucid dreaming is focusing on mundane things that you do in everyday life and within a dream the behavior is different. A friend actually used light switches as anchors so whenever there was one in a dream he would realize he was dreaming. Im not a practitioner so im not 100% sure how this works in practice but I remember him talking about light switches specifically
A great way to become conscious in your dreams is to notice something that isn't supposed to happen while you're awake. For reasons I'm not sure why, many people share a lot of experiences that happen in dreams that work well as anchors; your hair falls out, you look in a mirror and have missing teeth, technology doesn't work the way it's expected to, light switches don't work, clocks don't display a proper time or you can't read them, and more.
There are more ways to purposefully check if you're dreaming, such as by trying to push your finger through your hand, or breathing through your nose while you pinch it with your fingers. But some of the examples above just passively happen while you're dreaming and you can train yourself to notice them.
Yes. You start by having a dream journal. Before going to sleep, tell yourself with focus and mental expectation you will have dreams that you remember. Prep your mind. Each time you wake up, try to remember anything you might have dreamed jotting it down. This will increase awareness and number of dreams you have. Many also find taking naps during the day increases number of dreams. Most of mine came with them. You're also wanting to maximize REM sleep at least per previous research. That's where you get more dreaming and dream recall. There were devices built that supposedly detected when you were in REM vs NREM that could wake you up in REM. You could then journal stuff. I worried it might condition the brain to interrupt dreams, though. Never tried them.
So, now you're dreaming a lot. You now have to wake up in the dream. Techniques to do that are called "reality checks" since they tell you what's real and isn't. You do them all throughout the day of waking life to make a habit out of them. The habit kicks in during the dream either on autopilot (script) or when you remember to do it. You spot a discrepency between what's expected from reality and what you're seeing. You're therefore dreaming. You will probably wake up immediately with a mental rush. Lucid dreaming websites or books will give you techniques for "anchoring" from there like spinning around that hold the dream together. You can also do it with mental focus. You can also prime your subconscious to do it for you for a while but we're in tricky territory there with a lot to debate. Here's some reality checks I use to get your started:
First, ask yourself if you're awake. When you're awake, you know you're awake. If you're not sure, assume you're dreaming unless you prove otherwise. There's apparently some sense we have for that.
Second, there's often something to write with in dreams from a pen to your fingers on a surface. Write something down. Look at it to take in the words themselves plus their visual details. Hold it in your head while looking at other stuff in the room in similar detail. Then, look back at original writing to see if it changes. For some reason, the words will be different or start doing weird things like moving. You can do this with configuration of objects you find in room around you, too, but I find semi-cursive handwriting to be best. I speculate the difficulty is that the simulator has trouble telling what you're focusing on. That they're different components of the brain is already predicted by research on intuition vs reason.
Third, reflective surfaces like mirrors. They'll often have no reflection or reflect something unexpected. I'm probably the only person my friends meet who doesn't care about appearance much but always looks at mirrors. Get interesting reactions when I tell them I was just making sure the world was real instead of a dream. "No, I'm not worried or confused: just a good habit of mine." Another interesting reaction as that doesn't make it better haha. I take it as an opportunity to tell them about lucid dreaming or start a "how do you know what's real?" philosophy discussion. Or ensure they've seen The Matrix.
These three techniques have woken me in every dream I've ever had where I at least was aware enough to check them. Two of them are instances of a general pattern of simply observing the world in detail with a questioning mind. In my dreams, I similarly observe and question what I'm seeing with the WTF's going through the roof at some point. There's actually a compound effect where more simulation failures happen as I start noticing them. Confusion is how it starts. Then, my barely-functional, scripted mind starts wondering off script noticing things "aren't right." The second I'm partly independent of the dream's control I attempt a reality check out of habit. Then, I either wake up or have lucid control of the dream. My sneaky imagination sometimes counters, though, by switching to a new script to block my awareness. It adapts. The worst adaptation was, after seeing Inception, it incorporating the dream in a dream concept where I had to wake up 10+ times on occasion before I was awake. The dreams became inescapable.
That leads to the last point about practicing lucid dreams that people should know about: we can also get lucid nightmares. They're like all the creativity of your brain channeled in to writing your own personal, horror movie staring you as the perp, victim, or both. All depends on what you've seen/read previously and luck given dreams are semi-random connections between a vast array of thoughts/memories. ;) Most people can just wake yourself up to escape or at least nullify it knowing it's not real. That even feels empowering when you do it as you awaken to take on life's petty challenges after conquering something much worse. Some of us can't escape or make it go away, though. Nobody is sure how to determine that ahead of time either. One subset that was obvious was that any mental condition that brings anything from anxiety to paranoia can cause this since the same brain components are used in dream creation/control far as anyone can tell. My PTSD from head injury, aka "always-on worrying," turned some of lucid dreams from beautiful vacations I was used to into Freddy Krueger shit I couldn't escape from. Started happening a lot. Now, I just wake up the second I can since good ones aren't worth the bad ones to me.
Again, doens't happen to most people either anxious or not. I'm just giving the warning since anyone in that category will wish they knew ahead of time to make an informed decision about taking the risk. Everyone else, get a dream journal, start doing the reality checks, start taking naps, and prepare to have a blast just when you thought your day was "over." Also, you'll be the most experienced person in any conversation about what's real and isn't since you're ability to assess that will have been tested many times. ;)
I don't think your adaptations were caused by the movie. Fake wake-ups are common when lucid dreaming and some practitioners counter this by training themselves to preform reality checks each time they wake up.
That's true and good advise. I second that for anyone reading. You're never guaranteed to be out just because you seem to wake up. Double true if lying on bed when "awake." ;)
Regarding my case, I rarely had them over many years of lucid dreaming. They were 2-3 layers deep if each wake-up is a layer. After the movie, I had more in next months than I had in years with 3+ layers common with some around 10. I also increased lucidity after a few layers with changes to the dream script that tricked me into thinking I was more awake. The reality checks even failed on some of them. The simulation was that realistic. Except No 1 because I always know when I'm finally awake. I just couldn't apply No 1 in those dreams for some reason. I just eventually got out after massive, prolonged effort with many false positives until I was truly awake where I could apply No 1.
Freaky stuff. I'm not necessarily blaming the movie itself so much as saying it gave my mind an idea that unconscious creativity ruthlessly exploited from there. I can't prove causality but it's quite a huge correlation to be accidental. Fortunately, I managed to reduce the problem a bit using the reverse of learning lucid dreaming. Hit and miss. I haven't had one of those mega-layered dreams in a while.
But not fake narratives, fake writing or fake news.
Convenient that new media celebrities and individuals have greatest audience creation power through video, whereas traditional media still holds sway in print / news.
So clearly, understand the origins of the narrative that "fake video" is more dangerous: creator videos are stealing mindshare from traditional media. So of course trad media wants to believe it's dangerous. Because it is dangerous to them. But not for the reasons it pretends. At least not more than fakery in trad media.
Which there is plenty of. Including disguising a defense of their (failing?) business model, as a moral polemic, a subliminal plea that you need to trust "authority" outlets like them, more.
But funny how the concentration of "authority" power, which occurs in places like fact check /snopes, is the very thing those places pretend to be against.
Better in this distributed age to trust a sea of independent creators than a few authority sites, right? Even if the creators are all russian bots the concentrated few could all be pushing a single line.
Or maybe people should just trust themselves, and their own experience. And get more of that, instead of more exposure to media.
Buzzfeed and Vox are pushing this message, but they are by no means "traditional media". They're online-only publishers who are heavily oriented towards short-form video and social media sharing.
It's a much more straightforward issue of media literacy. The Facebook feeds of most people are littered with "news" from anonymous sources with unknown funders and unknown agendas. This created a major vulnerability in the media landscape that has been ruthlessly exploited.
I know Vox, I know their editor, I know most of their leading journalists. I know their political opinions and their potential biases. I don't necessarily trust them, but I am forewarned of their agenda and forearmed against any conscious or unconscious efforts they might make to influence my opinion. I understand the world view that Fox, CNN, The Guardian, WSJ, HuffPo and Drudge are trying to sell me. If I learn about something from one of these sources, I know how to find a contrasting perspective.
I have no idea who is behind "American Journalist", "Political Feed" or any number of other anonymous "news" publishers operating on Facebook. I'm a reasonably savvy media consumer and know not to give them credence, but the lack of an explanatory framework for their biases makes me much more vulnerable to subconscious manipulation. My psychological immune system hasn't been inoculated against these pathogens, so to speak.
This is a serious issue with stark ramifications and we shouldn't be so glib as to dismiss it as just media companies fighting a turf war.
I welcome other suggestions but for now I rely on Media Bias Fact Check [1] to learn about mysterious news sources (although they don't have entries for the two you mentioned). I agree with most of their assessments for the sources I know. They are criticized by both right and left leaning websites. Although I am sure a larger group could come up with something better, I like their methodology [2] and the answers in their faq [3].
[1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
[2] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/
[3] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/frequently-asked-questions/
I perceive your comment as nothing more than an ad hominem attack, so I struggle to understand why others have apparently voted it up.
The main reasons I trust any sources of information is that I trust that they hold themselves to a standard of journalism - such as verifying their sources. Doing original primary research into subjects.
When a video shows up in my Facebook news feed, I'm now more suspicious of it than ever before. Especially if it's from some source that I do not believe holds themselves to any journalistic standard.
I'm not pretending authority is an easy problem - it's not. I trust my pediatrician to be my proxy into understanding the world of pediatric medicine, I trust her as an authority. My family trusts me to be a proxy into understanding the world of technology, they trust me as an authority. And I have learned over time that some journalistic sources are good at reporting - they have a good track record, given the perspective of time.
And it's not even "old" versus "new." I quickly trusted the perspective of fivethirtyeight.com. Even in the crucible of debate, I find snopes vastly more right than they are wrong.
Video evidence used to be entirely damning. We should all ask harder questions now, rather than just taking some random video on faith.
We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'.
Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not. For stories based on secret sources, we never get a chance to ask the source if they really said that.
> We have front page stories in the NYT, WSJ et al that hinge entirely on 'unnamed sources' '[gov org] senior officials' and 'people familiar with the matter'.
That's about trusting the journalistic integrity the parent mentioned. I do trust journalists to know/keep track which sources are reliable, and report truthfully. Of course the source may have their own agenda on revealing things, but that's part of how the news landscape works.
Yes, and the NYT, WSJ, and many others, have an excellent track record of only publishing stories that hinge on "unnamed sources" "senior officials" and "people familiar with the matter" when they should.
They are asking me to trust them that, if I knew who their sources were, that I would trust their sources. As journalists, they ask that I believe them that they have confirmed the matter through multiple independent means.
And they are judged entirely on their track record.
This is not science. We cannot see their original research, we cannot reproduce their results.
> Video should be easy because it's either real or it's not.
Did you watch the videos in this story? That's simply not true. It's actually never been completely true, but now video is less trustworthy than before because it's getting vastly easier to create convincing fake video.
We used to have to contend with dishonest people editing context out, or even hiring actors. Now we can see convincing but completely fake video produced quickly and cheaply by "somebody sitting on their bed weighing 400 pounds". [1]
I had a different meaning of the phrase in mind - I meant like in a video.
"Now, my opponents would like you to think I hate all guns, and want to get rid of them. But that's not true!"
With the kind of context editing I was referring to, that can easily become:
"I hate all guns, and want to get rid of them."
But yes, when we trust a journalist to cite unnamed sources, yes, of course, we lose much of the context. And if over time it turns out the news source has a bad habit of covering the news poorly, we should stop giving them attention.
> Or maybe people should just trust themselves, and their own experience. And get more of that, instead of more exposure to media.
This is fine for certain contexts, but what about cases that can be important for individual people but outside their personal experience?
Did Trump sign an Obamacare repeal (an example from the article)? That kind of thing matters for being an informed voter, but few people were physically present through the various bills that went before Congress.
For much of day-to-day life, I agree with you. I just also think that reputation matters.
Sure, but we vote with majority of uninformed voters.
So democracy has to relegate information to second place, and rely on emotion and narrative to motivate voters.
This doesn't mean democratic leaders can't separate campaign from implementation ( campaign on emotive issues, deliver substantive ones ), but it does make the whole trajectory subject to the gravitational downward pull of fickle/merit-less but emotionally compelling issues.
Hence democracies demonstrated inability to deliver long-term plans and rapid large changes. But technocracy beats democracy there -- there they really care about information at the state planning level.
Hence, say what you want about China's media/mass PR exercise, but look at their results. Go and see them for yourself.
Their system kills a democratic system for delivering large meaningful changes.
And just ask FB. If FB was democratic, instead of autocratic/technocratic/data driven you really think they would be where they are now?
So why insist on it in government then, and pretend you are all so clever / right for doing so?
Seems to me you're just selling yourselves short-changed future in exchange for short-term feeling good about yourselves.
A poor and stupid bargain. But one you are happy with. Why? That's the question to investigate. The why. I think you've been sold on the idea of democracy because it's simply an effective means of keeping you all under control, and of maintaining the status quo so that nothing much ever changes -- and of amplifying and concentrating power in the unaccountable / secret / deep part of the state. You "feel" you have a voice, they give you an outlet, so you do nothing to uprise against it. Very effective control.
The architects of this idea must be laughing to see you all defending your system of bondage so hard. Socrates surely is laughing at you, too.
Okay, I confess. I have spoken against the true way of HN and am guilty of advancing ideas counter to the good of the glorious community. I am deeply sorry for how my ideas have damaged the eternal forum. All I can do is submit my useless self to beg for your mercy and surrender to reeducation!!!
Yes, yes, reeducate me! Help me censor my ideas more completely! Thank you, kind guides, your wisdom in the protection of the glorious community from harm is undeniable! All I can do is submit my stupid and pathetic self more fully to your teachings. Show me the glorious way of True HN Thought!
Relative to LINE/WhatsApp/Messenger/WeChat/Hangouts -- does anyone use SMS?
If big G really thinks it's going to "replace SMS" ( and they can leverage their platform to roll it out / lock in ) then good luck to them, maybe they can replace SMS.
But so what?
SMS was not the killer messaging app.
Those things are elsewhere.
Why does big G have an aversion to big acquisitions?
FB buys WhatsApp & IG -- Great moves
MS has made some big purchases
But the big G seems to purchase, but only for small dollar amounts (relatively). Same with Apple.
Even tho these two corps have (don't they?) big loads of cash.
I think it's technical arrogance. Big G and Apple are used to being revered as King S&&t of their tech.
So they think they can build it themselves. Ahahaha, sure, you can BUILD it...but can you get product/market fit to where it matters as a replacement?
I feel sorry for them. I think Big G and Apple obviously do great, but couldn't they do better to just narrow their focus. Even tho FB is f^&&d up in a lot of ways, one thing to really admire about their business is their narrow narrow focus. Even Oculus makes sense because Zuck sees a "Ready Player 1" world as the future ( with him as God Emperor, of course..heh ).
In high school I hated having ICQ and MSN and AIM because friends opted to use different ones. SMS is great because it connects you to anyone with a phone.
And that's why I like apps like signal that will fallback to SMS but make it trivial to use the secure protocol if it happens that the person you're talking to also uses signal.
