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by rcoder 1095 days ago
Choose one:

1. Full-on libre: speech, financial flows, technical architecture, etc. (i.e., basically the entire raison d'être for Nostr)

-or-

2. Live and work inside the walled garden of Apple + Google's app stores

You really can't have it both ways.

2 comments

You can always give people an effective way to sideload applications.
Which will unravel the App Store.

Because the benefits of side loading on iOS are so massive that everyone will use it i.e. you can use private APIs, bypass Apple's privacy controls, implement device tracking, harvest data e.g. contacts.

It's going to be a huge transfer of power and wealth back to the likes of Meta, Epic etc

Android has had sideloading forever, yet the Play Store still is the most popular store by miles.
None of those seem like benefits to the iPhone owner; why wouldn't I use the App Store?
Such is life. We should work to mitigate as much of this as possible, but not having sideloading should not be in the realm of possibilities.

(Yes, I'm aware of the workarounds. Those are not reasonable solutions.)

Why can't people just build an OS that can't be abused then.

Just make sure people ask for permission. Before giving them access to something?

We did, it's called GrapheneOS https://GrapheneOS.org
I swear to God iOS users just act like Android doesn't exist sometimes
To borrow a popular phrase:

Don’t Android my iPhone.

I left Android for an iPhone for a reason.

I’m happy with the one that doesn’t allow crypto crap.

Also free speech is a practical impossibility. Standard email is a free as it gets and it turns out nobody wants that because if you have completely free speech your inbox gets spammed into oblivion. Everyone draws the line somewhere.

First they came for the crypto crap, and I did not speak out ... Then they came for me.

And with email, the recipient can choose to override the spam filter. That's key, and is the reason that spam filters aren't censorship.

First they came for the spam emails, and I did not speak out because I was not a spammer.

Then they came for the crypto crap, and I did not speak out because I didn’t want that crap.

Then they came for the NFTs, and I did not speak out because I was not an NFT bro.

Then they came for the weekly trash pickup, and I said thank you.

People really like to use the slippery slope argument to mean "I took the most expansive interpretation of what someone did throwing away all context and came up with the worst possible thing they could do with that."
That's because if a bad actor was given the opportunity to make a lot of money doing the worst possible thing they could do with something someone will do that thing eventually 100% of the time, no exceptions. This isn't even an "Only siths deal in absolutes" scenario either.

There are plenty of people in the world who will do anything in this world for money, power, wealth, and control over people and they don't care who they hurt in the process of achieving that goal.

And? A bad actor that has power by fiat over you doesn't need a slippery slope to do bad things, they can just go and do them.

Case in point - Reddit's enshittification. Spez has decided that Reddit will now be a walled garden, and all you can do is take it or leave it.

Slippery slope arguments provide exactly zero guidance for as to when it is reasonable to stop going down the slope, which is what makes them utterly useless.

There's a thing some people seem to be unable to understand, and it's that... coming after bad things can be good, actually.

The thing about the "first they came" poem is that attacking the socialists, trade unionists and jews is already bad. There's a reason it doesn't start with "first they came for the murderers, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't a murderer".

The poem urges us to stand up against injustice even if it doesn't affect us directly. The poem doesn't argue that all slopes are slippery.

> There's a thing some people seem to be unable to understand, and it's that... coming after bad things can be good, actually.

Going after bad things can be good, but going after a developer who wants to be tipped in crypto isn't a bad thing. Apple being able to take down an app because it allows the user to monetarily reward a developer in the way the dev chooses *is* a bad thing.

> allows the user to monetarily reward a developer in the way the dev chooses is a bad thing

I honestly don't believe anyone can argue this in good faith. First off it's not user->developer but user->user and second "the way the dev [or user] chooses" is just silly. At the end of the day people want fiat currencies, Bitcoin (or any other crypto) in this case is clearly meant as a way to bypass the app store cut. It's not because "they really wanted bitcoin", no, they wanted a loophole. We can argue about if Apple/Google deserve 30% but pretending people actually want crypto for any reason other than avoid rules/regulations is silly.

> We can argue about if Apple/Google deserve 30% but pretending people actually want crypto for any reason other than avoid rules/regulations is silly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36405348

> I have a PornHub subscription that uses bitcoin. There's nothing speculative about it and it's completely legitimate. I've also used to to purchase indie games instead of giving Steam/Google/Apple/Epic a cut. I'm looking for a Spotify alternative and this seems to fit the bill and I'd give OP some bitcoin to check it out.

> Just because viable usecases don't exist today isn't proof that they'll never exist and isn't a reason to stop development. If we gave up on hard problems because we didn't solve them in 15 years we wouldn't have the AI we have today.

Can you please explain to me how my use of crypto is avoiding rules/regulations? I don't wish to be silly or have pretend intentions.

Is there a rule that says all developers have to put their games on Steam or Epic and accept local currency that I'm trying to avoid? Is there a rule that says developers can't sell their games for apples? What rules/regulations would a developer avoid by accepting apples as payment for their work?

Now extend this to people who are creating videos and want to create their an iOS app that will allow them to accept apples as payment. What makes crypto special?

Apple's 30% cut is not a real rule, I'm sorry. It doesn't bring any good in the world and it doesn't help anybody except Apple. Apple and Apple's supporters care about the rule but that doesn't make it a valid rule or something the rest of us have to sit back and accept. Using crypto to avoid Apple's fees isn't hurting anybody except the poor old multi-trillion dollar company named Apple. If you want to talk about people pretending let's talk about how many people pretend like Apple is a good guy or how people pretend like Apple cares about them on an individual level. It's as delusional as walking into a strip club and walking out thinking the stripper you paid $300 for a lap dance for loves you and wants to see you again because they care about you on an individual level.

It's also fully within someone's rights to put their foot down and fight Apple on this. There's nothing wrong with that and the US legal system allows for it. You can be a bully and tell people to pick up their ball and go somewhere else when they're in "your park" but one day someone is gonna punch you in the mouth and tell you to sod off when they see you let everyone else play there with different rules. Apple is going to lose their 30% cut in the very near future, they know it, and they're terrified.

If you wanna argue that going after cryptocurrency is a bad thing, make that argument. Don't just use the poem to make a lazy slippery slope argument.

And apparently, this isn't even about cryptocurrency but Apple's normal 30% tax. If that's true, then it means that the lazy slippery slope argument is even less applicable.

Nobody speaks out for crypto crap because everyone not in the crap swindling business wants it gone in its current shape.

It has nothing to do with free speech or anything, it’s a wart

It's absolutely wild to me to see someone take a poem about the genocide of millions of people and apply it to an app being banned from a digital store over cryptocurrency tipping.
You’re saying that Bitcoin is “crypto crap”, or just talking in general? And regarding the “free speech” topic, you’re saying that’s ok not finding new censorship resistant solution because essentially censorship is ok?

Just asking to better understand the underlying knowledge on the topic before putting myself into this valley of tears.

> if you have completely free speech your inbox gets spammed into oblivion.

Don't know for your provider, but on Gmail, I click on Spam and there are all there. It's not censorship, it's sorting. I usually go see them once a month, just in case something got badly sorted (it's also quite entertaining to see the scams attempts).

In what world is it censorship to choose to read something or not too? It may be censorship for sure that something is blocked (and still can be argued upon), but choosing not to read crap is not censorship, just like choosing not to read every scientific papers in the world is not censorship…

Why does sending Bitcoin peer to peer within an app offend you so much? Are there any other areas where you are this authoritarian?