The scarce thing is really your favorite band making a kickass song, investigative journalism instead of astroturfing and GRRM writing the next ASOIAF novel in less than five years.
Although this is besides the point, it is pretty easy to envision a moneyless post-scarcity society where such songs, novels, reports, and other forms of content are delivered to everyone free of charge:
> Paul Graham (the creator of this site) commented on the App Store himself, and his words were not entirely of ignorant praise like yours are
And you will find just as many people who love the app store oh and 18,000,000,000+ downloads and counting should nicely prove those 2 year old prophecies wrong.
The fact is Apple's reputation has been permanently tarnished in the face of developers, including PG. Even today, Apple uses very restrictive license agreements in the appstore. Here is a full explanation of their licensing restrictions from 2010, feel free to provide more up to date information:
Before you blame me for argument for authority, notice that rolfd's post is already ridiculously exaggerated because he said "it has an unbelievable positive impact."
And just because PG said something doesn't dispute the overwhelming success of the app store and the itunes store. There were just as allegedly "legendary" and allegedly "influential" (seriously, what influence and importance does PG really have outside of the smug cloud of valley startups? None to zero) people who said there will be a maximum of 5 to 6 computers around the world and the internet is completely useless. So, again, this does not an argument or a point make. The numbers prove it wrong. Just because someone says it has no relevance. Useless ad verecundiam right here.
If anything, Apple was incredibly smart about how and where they put the shackles on so most customers will happily accept the platform as it is. Ultimately, most people just care about the fact that it works and Apple continues to deliver on that front.
First of all, where are the applications in Google search? You just type in what you want, and the system uses AI to provide you with an answer. The fact that you can do that without having to think about millions of arbitrary applications is largely why it is so great. The fact is that people don't have an intuitive understanding of applications like "iTunes" they just have ideas of tasks like "listen to music." So I think the very idea of applications is flawed to begin with, and all applications will be made obsolete by a smart AI services, namely Google search.
Then there is the issue of over pricing these applications, when they could be free, which means that lots of people that are poor cannot acquire them.
But that isn't enough, behind the scenes, Apple has been screwing over developers with shackling licenses that I linked to above, and I don't care if they have been "incredibly smart" about how they have been screwing us over, they have still been doing it.
Google is way more than just google-search and has been for a long, long time. Those are the google applications I am talking about; all the different ways google gets data from you through allegedly free services. And they track you as best as they can and you cannot change that. You can use them but of course you don't have to. Same with apple. Don't like it, don't use it.
And yea, I get it, you like google search, alright... no ned to repeat it all the time. There are better search engines out there. And other people like their macs, iphones, ipads. You think you are smarter than other people to show them what they like is wrong? Preposterous.
iTunes works just fine and it is free. Apple software overall is generally considered very intuitive and I know a lot of total computer beginners who can use OS X and especially the ipad just fine. This is an absolutely ridiculous statement.
> about how they have been screwing us over
Do you have a single app in the iTunes app store? No? Then what are you complaining about? Or do you see yourself as some sort of vigilante and defender of all those "helpless" devs?
Do you really think devs who built iOS apps need _YOU_ of all people to "help" them understand how the appstore works? Do you really think they are not as smart as you and have nooooo idea what they got themselves into? This is outrageous.
You can develop for droid, win 7 or webos or plain old java programs for pre-smartphone mobiles or chrome apps or just some regular software. The possibilities are almost unlimited. If you don't like how apple conducts business and distributes software through the appstore, just don't develop any iOS apps and don't buy any. You won't miss out...
Again, in your own little black-and-white world you are making up Apple to be some sort of super-evil that is practically mind-controlling you and raping you for your money and freedom when they neither have a monopoly in any of the markets they are in nor are you stuck for choices and alternatives. End of story. You have absolutely no grounds for your ridiculous and completely empty claims. It all comes down to: don't like it then dont use it. That's it.
You are in absolutely NO position to tell any software or hardware company how to do business as long as what they are doing is legal. If you don't like what they are doing, don't buy their products and make your own alternatives or buy shit from their competitors.
> Google is way more than just google-search and has been for a long, long time.
Google is mainly an intelligent services company. Their main intelligent service is search, and other services such as machine translation and intelligent prediction are also provided. [1][2]
Besides services, Google actively develops many open platforms, such as Chromium and Android. Many of their attempts to build simple applications have failed. [3]
> You can use them but of course you don't have to. Same with apple. Don't like it, don't use it.
People aren't fully aware of the fact that Apple/Microsoft exert control over their devices with operating systems such as Windows 7 and iOS. In the free software movement we are trying to get people to realize this through campaigns against these systems. [4] [5]
If you try to get everyone like me to shut up whenever whenever we criticize Apple/Microsoft then people won't be able to make educated choices.
> And other people like their macs, iphones, ipads. You think you are smarter than other people to show them what they like is wrong?
You clearly don't know me at all, so please stop personally attacking me. I certainly don't think I am "better then other people."
I want to educate people about the corrupt activities of Apple/Microsoft and develop better alternatives based upon Linux and web technologies. Google has been an essential ally in this effort.
> Apple software overall is generally considered very intuitive.
I don't know how you qualify "very intuitive", however, it is counter-intuitive to base a system on applications like iTunes rather then tasks. See away with applications by Aza Raskins and the anti-mac interface by Jakob Nielson. [6] [7]
> nor are you stuck for choices and alternatives.
You are wrong about this. There simply is not an abundance of free choices out there for people. Apple/Microsoft have totally dominated the computer industry since it started during the PC revolution nearly 25 years ago. Even now that free Linux alternatives like Ubuntu and Android have emerged, they still aren't widely available.
> You are in absolutely NO position to tell any software or hardware company how to do business as long as what they are doing is legal.
One thing our legal system still provides us with is freedom of speech. So I am still free to educate everyone about the harm that the tyrannies of Apple/Microsoft have inflicted upon the computing industry over the last ~25 years. On the other hand, apparently you think I should just buy my products and suck it up, rather then talking about this.
That's where their money is coming from. Advertising is at least as evil a concept as DRM if not worse. And it is the fuel of capitalism, which you claim to also hate despite sucking up to google and buying nice capitalist products. This makes you a hypocrite.
Real actual FSF and OS are projects like e.g. GNU/Linux and BSD. Google is nothing but a company and they use some of that available software and they also release a few little bits of their own software where it FITS their own business plan and marketing or where they get free code developed for them because the software is not directly running their core advertising business. Sun did the same thing. That's it. Nothing humanitarian or altruistic or world-freedom-good about it. It is smart business, not charity.
I am not trying to shut you up, I was hoping to get you even an inch off your radical, fundamentalist view and see a bit of positive that apple has brought in my opinion but this discussion is completely futile and I feel exactly like talking to one of those indoctrinated creationists denying evolution. You argue and act like a borderline-religious fanatic and in your arguments you actively twist reality to suit your fundamentalist goals and google-religious world view.
There is absolutely no objective justification to see google as "our saviors" and apple as "all evil hell", it is nothing but your personal preference - yet you would not flinch an eye if you could give all power to google and destroy apple and M$ right now since google's allegedly "natural" monopoly is totally acceptable for you, yet apple's 10% market share isn't. This fact alone makes you a fanboy, a fanatic and a zealot - and a wannabe tyrant.
Actual good has been done by the communities around GNU/Linux and BSD etc. Google is just a company and they are in it for the money. You just prefer their products and you make this personal preference up to be something everyone should like.
In addition you laugh at a person's (actually tragic) death. This makes you a terrible human being and just an asshole.
I don't need to know you and I don't WANT to know you, your actions make it clear: you think you are in a position to know it better than everyone who happily switched to a mac and this means you obviously think you are smarter than everyone else because they made "the wrong choice" according to your google-fundamentalism. You are unable to accept that people will simply buy what they like and what works for them and when there is something better (better for THEIR needs, not yours) they will use that thing.
> In the free software movement we
You are not part of no free software movement, you do not contribute anything - you are a google fanboy and a fanatic zealot.
You do not educate people, you are trying to indoctrinate with twisted facts that fit your own bill and you think you are fighting for some higher cause and your great enemies need to be abolished. This makes you a fundamentalist and zealot, not a benevolent teacher. You do not spread anything positive, you are fueled by hatred, nothing good comes of this. You don't even contribute to what you claim to believe in.
Free software and open source would be much better off without people like you. You give actual hackers who actually contribute time and code to real free software a bad name.
Free software and open source would be in a much better position if all those zealots like you who are talking big words would instead shut up and code better software to rival existing system. You have done nothing like that so you will have to accept Apple and M$ until some people spend THEIR time to make something better. Because all YOU do is talk.
This leads nowhere, your hatred and fundamentalism sits too deep for an actual discussion. You only see things in extremes, only black and white. You can not see other people's sides and you cannot accept their choices which, together with laughing about someone who died, suggests strong lack of empathy.
All together, I assume you are between 14 or 22 - exactly the age where little kids like to think they know the whole world and actually know and have seen and done nothing.
I am done talking to you and I regret HN doesn't offer a killfile.
One thing you said is that "all YOU do is talk." If you looked into my activities in more detail you would realize that one of my main areas of research is improving web browsing techniques. This is because I consider manual installation to be the most important HCI problem today, and web browsing is the main means of escaping it.
I do not consider Google to "our saviors", I actually consider the open web to be. Here are a few reasons:
- It will allow client operating systems to download and cache resources from the network, so that the problem of managing the installation process isn't being placed on the user.
- It will allow us to escape closed platforms like those produced by Microsoft and Apple.
- It will give us a good medium for delivering intelligent services such as machine translation and prediction.
Google just happens to be one of the greatest supportors of this effort and they deserve considerable praise for that.
> Advertising is at least as evil a concept as DRM
Why? Advertisments are one of the main reasons companies like Google are capable of giving out services for free to everyone, so in this sense advertisments are actually relatively good.
> see a bit of positive that apple has brought
What good have Apple or Microsoft brought exactly? They took Xerox PARC's innovations, then they built closed and restrictive platforms around them, the exact sort of closed platforms I want to replace with the open web.
> In addition you laugh at a person's (actually tragic) death.
The only thing I am glad about is that Steve Jobs cannot do any more harm to computing by acting as the CEO of Apple. it is a tragedy that he personally had to die. This is also what Stallman said.
> I am done talking to you and I regret HN doesn't offer a killfile.
You certainly are no longer interested in having a civilised discussion with me. You are now resorting to personal attacks such as "hypocrite", "troll", "asshole", "terrible human being", etc. Thank you for the mature topics that you did discuss before.
Paul Graham (the creator of this site) commented on the App Store himself, and his words were not entirely of ignorant praise like yours are:
http://www.paulgraham.com/apple.html
The scarce thing is really your favorite band making a kickass song, investigative journalism instead of astroturfing and GRRM writing the next ASOIAF novel in less than five years.
Although this is besides the point, it is pretty easy to envision a moneyless post-scarcity society where such songs, novels, reports, and other forms of content are delivered to everyone free of charge:
http://adciv.org/