[enriquec]

"unlock codes or whatever"

As an engineer, I can tell you it's not even easy to keep things working internally - let alone support every possible integration. Just because it's easy to say, doesn't mean it's feasible to do.

But if you're convinced its what people want, there's nothing preventing you from making it your life - like other people have done with their strategies.

[graemep]

No one is asking for support for every possible integration.

What people are asking for is not actively preventing other integrations. That means through business means and deals as well as technological measures.

[xxpor]

I gotta be honest, I really feel like these comments are completely divorced from reality.

No one (p99.99) wants to get rid of Google/Apple on their phones. But "how do I install Play services" is a wildly popular search for people who own Kindle Fires.

No one wants to deal with the Windows 98ificaiton of phones.

[grayhatter]

> I gotta be honest, I really feel like these comments are completely divorced from reality.

> No one (p99.99) wants to get rid of Google/Apple on their phones. But "how do I install Play services" is a wildly popular search for people who own Kindle Fires.

Just like no one wants to get rid of Internet Explorer, right?

No one wants to, in large part because it's a fucking nightmare. I say that as someone who not only knows how, but knows how to write the code for it too. Why is it so hard? What makes it a nightmare? Their business model requires a walled garden, because otherwise...

Anyways, People have no issues migrating from myspace to facebook, or from youtube to instagram to tiktok. If it wasn't a fucking nightmare full of bullshit, user hostile rules (e.g. manifest version, or max age of TCP connections) there'd be a market for Google alternatives.

Right now the only motivation is privacy, and Graphiene works pretty well. Turns out, caring about privacy is a lot more motivating than wanting some feahure to work. Especially when "they" have a vested interest in making sure no one else can provide that feature.

[Groxx]

They want it the moment they lose their Google account, or a service they used shuts down or sold to a group they don't want to support.

They just know that complaining about it gets them nowhere, so you don't hear it much outside minor explosions of rage as they lose everything.

[crabbone]

You probably simply don't know what this is about. When Android phones "age" to a certain point, they become locked (user cannot log into the OS), and the only way to circumvent this is by jailbreaking them and installing a different firmware / OS.

I have a Galaxy S7 that is in this condition, and I haven't the time to try to reinstall it.

Many users never face this problem because they buy new phones before their old ones hit this particular point, often because many applications will stop working before that due to developers discontinuing support effectively rendering the phone useless. I ran into this problem because I kept my phone around due to some images stored on it (well, now that's lost forever).

[LinuxBender]

I know this requires changing the SoC to x86_64 or ARM but I want bog standard Linux any distribution to run on the cell phone, at least run in the sense of the kernel. The applications would be up to the distribution maintainers. Talking to the modem should just be a Linux kernel module that has been blessed by Linus Torvalds. The code must be clean enough that at no point is he tempted to raise the middle finger or start writing an email. No obfuscated code, no lawful intercept JTAG debugging code, no dodgy BIOS just bog standard Linux and standard x86_64 or ARM hardware. Maybe something like coreboot as the BIOS.

In fairness I also want a goose that lays golden eggs.

[doug_durham]

By all means do that. I'm sure you will find an audience of enthusiasts who would consume your work. Saying is one thing, doing is another.

[pdimitar]

"What color do you like dragon to be?"

[LinuxBender]

Multi-Phasic Ultraviolet. Only visible with Spectrespecs.

[ethbr1]

Nobody wants that because there's currently no market for it, so no solutions for it.

(And yes, we can quibble about alternate Android app stores in countries that aren't China, but Google's rigged that game heavily in their favor via defaults)

[refulgentis]

I appreciate the engineering perspective, and you're right that supporting every integration isn't trivial.

Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)?

Setting that aside, it seems it not every possible combination needs official support, but rather that providing an open or documented way for motivated users or communities to build upon or repurpose devices would be beneficial. Many projects exist precisely because tech companies allowed or at least tolerated community-driven solutions.

It's less about expecting everything to be effortless for the original manufacturer, and more about avoiding deliberate restrictions that prevent the community from extending a device's useful lifespan.

[GTP]

> Is there a difference between providing an "unlock code" upon deprecation, and requiring "support for every possible integration"(?)?

As a different engineer than the one you where replying to, I can say that yes, there is a substantial difference between the two. What the original comment was likely referring to with unlock codes, is the ability of unlocking a smartphone's bootloader so that one is able to install custom ROMs. But this is very different from providing support for said ROMs. A company can totally say: "here's the unlock code, but you use this under your sole responsibility, we will void your warranty if you do this". Being able to install custom ROMs at the cost of losing the warranty is a compromise I'm willing to accept: one can still wait for the warranty to expire and then install custom ROMs.

[Teever]

Do the tech companies that make the devices that we now require for daily life because they decided to make the world that way release all of the resources necessary for independent people to do what you're suggesting?

If not that's something that we need to regulate.

[enriquec]

The regulations stop more people from being able to do this than competition does. "because they decided to make the world that way" Who is "they"? Participants in the free market? I don't think inept politicians should supersede them.

[closewith]

The tech monopolies and oligopolies are not participants in a free market - they are they result of regulation.

[ethbr1]

Massive capital has the same effect.

The world learned this circa-1900.

[closewith]

To be clear, I am in favour of regulation and taxation that would make these monopolies and their beneficial owners artefacts of the past.

Neither the free market nor the current regulation in the US operates in favour of the citizenry.

[mrguyorama]

A useful big step would be to just use the exact antitrust regulations and laws we have had on the books since the first time we had to figure this out over a hundred years ago. Teddy Roosevelt helped take care of this, though we definitely didn't wield them against AT&T for too long.

They served us okay enough right up until Reagan decided that monopolies would be fine if they "benefited the consumer", as if that isn't a trivially stupid concept to anyone who has dealt with any system ever. Thanks to Reagan's admin, we allowed companies to nakedly take aggressive control of any market they want as long as they pretended they wouldn't raise prices.

We need to be less accepting of mergers and acquisitions too. If Google can just throw an absurd amount of money at any startup competitor to kill competition, it doesn't matter that it's not efficient, what human being will turn down $100 million just to stop competing? "Acquihires" are an anti-competitive practice

A company just having a lot of cash on hand can purposely pervert markets if you let them.

Conservatives complain about "punishing winners" but if you want a market to stay competitive, and therefore allow market forces to actually function, you cannot HAVE a "winner", or at least you can't let someone win so comprehensively that their resources end up warping the market just like a lot of mass warps spacetime. You must ensure that any company can be threatened by upstarts.