dpkonofa's recent activity

  1. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    It doesn’t even have to be something that’s happened to Apple in the past. It’s just obvious to anyone who has any tech experience that companies will attempt to take advantage of anything that...

    It doesn’t even have to be something that’s happened to Apple in the past. It’s just obvious to anyone who has any tech experience that companies will attempt to take advantage of anything that makes things easier or more accessible to laypeople.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative

    dpkonofa
    Link
    I have two major projects that I’m working on: An animated series called Pajamazon about warrior girls that fight bad dreams with kids A set of demos for legacy products that my production company...

    I have two major projects that I’m working on:

    1. An animated series called Pajamazon about warrior girls that fight bad dreams with kids
    2. A set of demos for legacy products that my production company will be selling/creating for people that are, basically, audio and video documentaries of people’s lives for them to share with descendants.

    Both take up a ton of my time and it makes me sad that things have to constantly make money to be something you can put effort into.

    4 votes
  3. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    They don’t, though. I don’t mean that there has never been a purchase on Android (but I would hope that that would be clear without me having to point out something so obvious). I mean that,...

    They don’t, though. I don’t mean that there has never been a purchase on Android (but I would hope that that would be clear without me having to point out something so obvious). I mean that, comparatively, people spend so much less within the Android ecosystem (globally) that the ROI on external app stores would basically be non-existent. That’s not the case with Apple’s App Store.

    And your assertion that “they know that … no one would be willing to install a 3rd party app store” is comically wrong. They absolutely would do that if there was no other alternative. If Meta created their own App Store and required people to install their apps from there, I can guarantee that their users would do that. Meta would even go so far as to require it for future usage of their apps. They didn’t do that on Android because there’s nothing to gain from that. There’s a ton to gain from that happening on iOS, though.

    1 vote
  4. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    That’s not a counterpoint. You have a preset bias that existed before the iPhone even came out. That’s hardly the majority of people nor is it even representative of any of the population of...

    That’s not a counterpoint. You have a preset bias that existed before the iPhone even came out. That’s hardly the majority of people nor is it even representative of any of the population of iPhone owners. The fact is that people switch from Android to iPhone in 1/5 of the cases where the person was new to either platform while the inverse is that less than 1% switch from iPhone back to Android and the only way to make that number higher is to constrain it to people this used Android first, then switched, and then switched back (which makes it a 4% rate).

    Just because you don’t get the appeal doesn’t mean that the vast majority of people share that sentiment.

    2 votes
  5. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    Yes... this is precisely the point. There's nothing to gain from doing so on Android but there is on iOS. People spend money on iOS.

    No alternative app store has taken up any significant market share, because why would they?

    Yes... this is precisely the point. There's nothing to gain from doing so on Android but there is on iOS. People spend money on iOS.

    2 votes
  6. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    There are tons of things they could incentivize, just like they do with any other industry and with moving production and manufacturing back to the US. EVs are a terrible example as the incentives...

    There are tons of things they could incentivize, just like they do with any other industry and with moving production and manufacturing back to the US. EVs are a terrible example as the incentives are for purchasers and not for the companies producing the cars. The incentives I’m talking about are incentives for the companies producing the phones in question. Also, it’s the government. They can create whatever incentives they want - requiring the devices to be open source, to be software agnostic, to support open source hardware, etc. They can literally incentivize any number of things that Apple would be ineligible for simply by virtue of how they’ve set up their stack. They could even incentivize phones that allow side loading (if only our politicians knew what that even was).

    The rest of your statement about this being throwing money at the problem is just a deflection and you prove that by your Microsoft example. Microsoft couldn’t compete because they made an inferior product that seemed polished but had no support from developers and, therefore, no apps for end users. If people weren’t ok with iPhones, they would have bought the Microsoft phones back then. You saying “the consumer demand is there” is such an empty statement that there’s no point in taking it seriously. Consumer demand squarely supports the iPhone. Claiming it doesn’t is simply dishonest.

    Your last statement even proves my point further. There’s nothing stopping Fairohone, Samsung, HTC, Sony, or anyone else from running their own OSes in their devices. For some reason, you’re completely ignoring why they didn’t, don’t, and won’t do that. All of these companies (except Fairphone) existed before iPhone and Android and have the resources and money to make their own tightly interwoven offerings but they didn’t and don’t. They put themselves at a disadvantage. That wasn’t Apple’s fault then and it isn’t their fault now.

  7. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    Isn’t this a bit dishonest? Android only has a 30% market share in the US so there’s no reason to do this rather than investing in the web and this does happen in other countries (China, for...

    Isn’t this a bit dishonest? Android only has a 30% market share in the US so there’s no reason to do this rather than investing in the web and this does happen in other countries (China, for example). It already happens with payment processing (Zelle didn’t exist until 2 years after Apple Pay and Google Pay launched and banks had an “oh shit” moment) and would happen again with any area of business where banks could stand to make money by offering their own alternatives. Android, unfortunately, is dwarfed by the profits gained from iOS equivalents so banks won’t go there until there’s a financial incentive for them to do so.

    1 vote
  8. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    What’s backing my assertion is that the iPhone has 3 things that, factually, support it: Apparently, the iPhone has a 70% market share The iPhone has an incredibly small amount of people that...

    What’s backing my assertion is that the iPhone has 3 things that, factually, support it:

    1. Apparently, the iPhone has a 70% market share
    2. The iPhone has an incredibly small amount of people that switch from it to Android (even amongst former Android users that switched to it) while also having a large percentage of Android users switching to it (a steady rate of about 15% per year)
    3. The iPhone, amongst any piece of technology, has one of the highest rates of customer satisfaction amongst its users and the highest rate of users who say that their next purchase will also be an iPhone

    You can take 2 major conclusions away from this (amongst several smaller ones):

    Either people like their iPhones so much that switching isn’t even a thought for them or Apple is locking people in and they have to stay with iPhones. The number of people switching to iPhone from Android and the insanely high satisfaction ratings year to year lead me to think that it’s the first. Anecdotally, this conclusion holds true for most of the people I know and the non-techie users whose phones I’ve had to support bear that further. Those with Android phones tolerate them or have to use them because they got them for free/cheap. Those with iPhones mostly love them. The only group this doesn’t hold true for is very techie people who care about things like skinning, viewing runtime info about their device, or being able to pirate apps.

    4 votes
  9. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    I think you’re proving their point rather than their own. Banks don’t do that precisely because a majority of people favor the current ecosystem that Apple has set up. If that gets torn down, then...

    I think you’re proving their point rather than their own. Banks don’t do that precisely because a majority of people favor the current ecosystem that Apple has set up. If that gets torn down, then they absolutely will do what he’s saying. It already happened in the 90s and 2000s with other platforms.

    2 votes
  10. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    Hard disagree. The government has several paths to incentivize companies. You act like things like Fairphone don’t exist.

    Hard disagree. The government has several paths to incentivize companies. You act like things like Fairphone don’t exist.

    1 vote
  11. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    If that’s the case, why doesn’t the government incentivize tech companies to build new smartphones then? I don’t understand why the play is to cripple an existing phone maker just because they are...

    If that’s the case, why doesn’t the government incentivize tech companies to build new smartphones then? I don’t understand why the play is to cripple an existing phone maker just because they are a popular choice rather than attempt to foster more competition.

    2 votes
  12. Comment on Apple has kept an illegal monopoly over smartphones in US, Justice Department says in antitrust suit in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    I think the only (but still predominant) issue with this argument is that the entire reason for this is that only a few companies have the ability and the resources to create products that are...

    I think the only (but still predominant) issue with this argument is that the entire reason for this is that only a few companies have the ability and the resources to create products that are this advanced and complex.

    To use your car example, nothing is stopping companies from putting the fuel port on the right side. That’s a design design that’s informed by iteration from previous products. Technically, there’s nothing stopping a new player from coming onto the market with only right port cars just like there’s nothing stopping a new player from coming onto the market with a new smartphone. The issue is that there’s vast hardware, software, and administrative/logisticsl knowledge that comes together to make these devices.

    Based on that, I don’t see why Apple would have to open up their business just because they put the time, effort, and resources to create these complex, intricate products any more than anyone else should have to open their store to products they don’t want to sell. On a smaller scale, it seems no different than telling me that I need to offer other people to sell their products in my store just because there’s not another store in the area (despite there being a similar store just down the street). I just don’t see how it can be said consumers don’t have a choice as long as Android exists.

    2 votes
  13. Comment on Alien: Romulus | Official teaser trailer in ~movies

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    I’m so sad Raised by Wolves was cancelled. What a weird and wonderful show.

    I’m so sad Raised by Wolves was cancelled. What a weird and wonderful show.

    2 votes
  14. Comment on Has anyone here received any benefit as a consumer from algorithmic ad targeting? in ~tech

    dpkonofa
    Link
    I would have to take a good, hard look at the perception of “benefit” to answer this but I can say that I have bought items as a result of targeted marketing that I am happy with. The biggest...

    I would have to take a good, hard look at the perception of “benefit” to answer this but I can say that I have bought items as a result of targeted marketing that I am happy with.

    The biggest issue for me is that I have no way of knowing what I’m trading for those benefits (or, more accurately, conveniences). For every perceived benefit, I can think of thousands of ways that I would be harmed or inconvenienced. For example, if I bought 2 of the items that I found through targeted ads, is that worth me getting bombarded by ads everywhere, even with an ad-blocker? As someone that values their time more than anything, I’m not sure if the time spent watching parts of ads on YouTube (the ad-blocking isn’t perfect no matter what anyone claims) and Hulu was worth the convenience of me being presented with ads just as I was shopping for a Roomba.

    3 votes
  15. Comment on Canadian pet DNA company sends back dog breed results from human sample a second time in ~life.pets

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    To be fair, that’s a pretty responsible thing to do if you’re dead-set on buying a dog as a pet. There’s nothing worse than ignorant people buying a dog because they think it looks cool or because...

    To be fair, that’s a pretty responsible thing to do if you’re dead-set on buying a dog as a pet. There’s nothing worse than ignorant people buying a dog because they think it looks cool or because they just want it only for them to realize that their new pet needs something they can’t provide. That’s how dogs end up being abandoned on the streets or in the woods/desert.

    I’d much rather people buy dogs that suit their lifestyle because those dogs end up spoiled and loved and not abandoned.

    1 vote
  16. Comment on Canadian pet DNA company sends back dog breed results from human sample a second time in ~life.pets

    dpkonofa
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    That is a bit short-sighted. We did it when we adopted a rescue dog so that we would be aware of any potential health issues that might come with a specific breed or combination of breeds. It was...

    That is a bit short-sighted. We did it when we adopted a rescue dog so that we would be aware of any potential health issues that might come with a specific breed or combination of breeds. It was also just fun guessing which breeds we thought he was and then validating those guesses against the results.

    Unlike the results in the article, though, we went with Embark which was a little more expensive but is widely regarded as being more accurate about breeds and more honest about unknowns and gaps (which, to be fair, is also true of one of the companies that correctly identified the human samples in the article as inconclusive in both tests).

    It’s not always a grift and it’s not always a waste.

    Edit: Looks like you’ve already gotten to a place of agreement in other threads thanks to other users. Another point for the discourse on Tildes.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on A mistake in a Tesla and a panicked final call: The death of Angela Chao in ~transport

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    I’ve always read that you’re supposed to let water run into the car to ease opening the doors in vehicles with laminated glass… now I gotta go check if that’s actually true…

    I’ve always read that you’re supposed to let water run into the car to ease opening the doors in vehicles with laminated glass… now I gotta go check if that’s actually true…

    10 votes
  18. Comment on Illumination, Nintendo set new animated film based on world of Super Mario Bros in ~movies

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    I wasn’t super impressed either and thought they kinda rushed things. The movie was purely fan service aimed at kids so I’m ok with that. The kids in my family loved it. #happymarioday

    I wasn’t super impressed either and thought they kinda rushed things. The movie was purely fan service aimed at kids so I’m ok with that. The kids in my family loved it. #happymarioday

    1 vote
  19. Comment on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in North American theatres in ~games

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    Got it. Totally misread what you wrote. Thought you meant you’d be upset to find out that you were going to see the director’s cut after buying your tickets.

    Got it. Totally misread what you wrote. Thought you meant you’d be upset to find out that you were going to see the director’s cut after buying your tickets.

  20. Comment on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children in North American theatres in ~games

    dpkonofa
    Link Parent
    Ok… so why would you hate finding out about that after the fact?

    Ok… so why would you hate finding out about that after the fact?