jbombadil

Another noteworthy annoyance is the increasing number of services that try to aggressively push you towards passkeys, without you ever asking.

Every other time I open the Costco app (needed to walk in to the store, since I don't carry my card and they refuse to provide Apple Wallet integration) I get asked to switch to passkey, without a way of saying "don't ask me again".

If you're in any position to determine this in your company/software, please stop this pattern. Give users the option to say "stop asking me about passkeys".

I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it.

Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to:

1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality.

2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after the sale. This means that a company cannot "revoke" your access at a later time. Specifically for content that is DRM locked, if they decide to sunset that service (store, DRM server, whatever), no problem! just offer DRM free (or generally lock-free copies). I have no problem with Sony not offering DRM free versions of games that I can still download and play with the store. But if that goes away -> you must give me a path to local ownership.

(Multiplayer games that require server infrastructure are a bit more complex, and I'd leave aside for now).

This should apply equally to video games, movies, books, music. Any digital content.

I think there's a case for a corporate class action lawsuit against Neal for employee productivity loss every time every time a new game is published.

https://archive.is/yoLYM

I'm curious about the environmental argument here. At face value it makes sense, but is there some hard data that shows that there is a meaningful number of consumers that buy new phones only (or "mostly") because of battery degradation?

The article (granted, probably not the best source of information) has some numbers like "number of phones sold", but doesn't actually tackle the crux of the issue: how many of those phone sales would be prevented by having user swappable batteries?

[...]And because federal agencies were allowed to deploy the product during the review, GCC High spread across the government as well as the defense industry. By late 2024, FedRAMP reviewers concluded that they had little choice but to authorize the technology — not because their questions had been answered or their review was complete, but largely on the grounds that Microsoft’s product was already being used across Washington.

This sounds like the crux of the issue. The combination of: "tool can be used during analysis" and "analysis takes long" shifts the barrier of rejection from "is this tool safe?" to "is this tool so unsafe that we're willing to start a fight with a lot of other government agencies to remove it, find an alternative, etc?".

Not criticizing FedRAMP. Proper security review takes time. And probably more when dealing with vendors.

I hope so too, but don't believe that's the ultimate intent here.

The problem is that the tech independence is being pushed by government who want more control - not less. (Not speaking specifically of France and this instance, but looking at the anti-encryption rules that the UK and Ireland are pushing)

From that standpoint, I imagine the "solution" here won't be to push an open source alternative, but a closed one that they to control.

100% agree. The level of tracking has gotten to absurd levels.

I needed a couple of grocery items and happened to be next to an Amazon Fresh. Cool, let’s try it! Went in, found everything I needed and went to self checkout. When it was time to pay, the machine wouldn’t accept Apple Pay. I ask an employee who helpfully informs me that I can pay with physical cards or my Amazon account.

I didn’t have my physical cards, nor wanted to do my Amazon account so I had to leave empty handed. Why don’t they accept Apple Pay? Because they can’t track you. If you use a physical card, they can likely link that card number to an Amazon account and thus attribute the purchase to a person. If you pay with contactless payment they get a one time token that they can’t tie to anyone.

Looks like Microsoft is taking a page out of the cable companies' playbook. Next up, there will be "discounted" Copilot 365 or whatever: a 2 year contract with the "promotional price" locked in and a penalty fee for cancelling early.

+1!

Please Google let me have a normal TOTP authentication. No SMS, no "open the gmail app on this other device and tap this prompt", no mandatory Google Authenticator, etc.

https://archive.is/3lllh

https://archive.is/4iBzE

There's still a "wow factor" associated with this. I live in a city that doesn't have Waymo. I recently had a work trip to a city that does. Waymo was 25% more expensive than Uber (~15 vs ~20). I still took Waymo because I don't get to experience it often, so it's fun to be in a driverless car. If I had constant access to Waymo, I would have probably chosen the cheapest option.

I had issues with wired CarPlay in multiple cars (and consistently on my Crosstrek) Turned out to be a loose lightning port on my iPhone. A 15 minute visit to my local Apple Store fixed the problem.

https://archive.is/1NMCR

Thank you Peter! (not just for this answer, but for doing these AMAs in a regular basis!)

Hey Peter. Is there any way to confirm whether a request to USCIS to bump a case from F2A to IR was recevied or acknowledged? We haven’t received any 797-C or any other confirmation. Thanks!

I agree. This is empowering people to program in the most superficial level. It’s about volume, not quality. It’s the same vein in which social media “empowers” social relationships.

It’s not that it won’t help anyone. But what will be the second order effects if it becomes the norm? And I’m not talking just about “jobs”. I’m talking about the growth and empowerment that comes from learning, the critical thought process, etc.

Not GP, but feel similarly. I'll offer my 2 cents:

but with the dial turned down a little.

Exactly for this reason. Yes, HN is a social network. And if it follows the same enshittification path as the others, I will be gone from here too. But until then, to me (YMMV) it still provides a bit of entertainment and news without rotting my brain.

Even the analogy works. Fast food is not that bad... in moderate quantities (/"with the dial turned down a little")

https://archive.ph/3ZOa9

My understanding is that the law doesn’t ban TikTok. The law gives the president the power to ban TikTok. So the president can elect not to use said power.

https://archive.is/Iqaka

https://archive.is/aaq82

While I agree that people getting internet in this day and age is _basically_ a necessity (and thus the govt should interfere when needed to make that happen), doing it in this way is the worse possible implementation. Was it necessary in this case? I don't know.

First, foster competition. I don't know the NY landscape, but in the West Coast, it's not uncommon for a residency to have effectively a single option for ISP. Ensure consumers have options (incentivize creation of new ISPs? Stop allowing big corporations to buy small ones? break up big corporations and force them to compete?)

Second could the government offer public internet? (ie, be a player in the market).

Only as a last resort should these types of heavy hand price enforcements should be taken.

They are on your desktop. Have you tried installing any game you bought through Steam lately? They all install a custom launcher / updater / stuff that ends up in startup.

If you don't want an unlocked bootloader, just don't unlock your bootloader.

That kind of logic cuts both ways: "If you don't want a device with a locked boot loader, just don't buy a device with a locked bootloader".

Unfortunately, as consumers, we're trapped between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I would want 100% freedom to use my device exactly as I see fit and run any software I want, without any form of curation from the manufacturer. On the other hand, there are plenty of software companies who do shitty things when given absolute freedom over what to do in a user's device (tracking / spying / etc) and I welcome buying a device where the manufacturer helps me fight some of that.

So I can absolutely see both arguments. And I think both types can coexist. I am happy my iPhone doesn't allow Meta to say "to use WhatsApp, you must install the MetaStore®, give it root and install it from there". I would not be happy with those restrictions on my desktop.

This is amazing news. I wonder if this means we’re going to see a TV/home console with Steam OS soon.

I am currently borrowing a friend’s Steam Deck to try it out. It’s absolutely amazing, particularly around starting and stopping gaming sessions.

The only thing holding be back from buying it is that the processing power is a couple of years outdated at this point. It still works fine for older AAA games (or newer lighter games), but it can’t keep up with new AAA.

Having the option of newer hardware with the Steam OS experience is amazing!

I understand that… As long as they rate limit their own video call service at the same rate as they do the competitions. Which I somehow doubt they’ll do (unless forced by law / regulation)

I bet that they haven’t done it openly (maybe we haven’t discovered it yet?) because it’s a hot issue.

But there are examples where net neutrality has protected consumers.

In 2012, At&T blocked FaceTime on its network unless you were on one of its expensive plans.

An AT&T spokeswoman, speaking on background, disputed it was using cellular FaceTime as a "premium" feature, but acknowledged the company was using it as a lever to get users to switch over to the new plans which charge for data usage in tiers.

(Source: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/facetime-net-neutrality-flap/)

As a consumer, I understand the need of a native app for something that is performance intensive or that requires a level of OS access that the website doesn’t provide.

OTOH, in tired of everyone pushing apps that could easily be a website.

I had an xfinity technician aggressively pushing me to install their xfi app when they came to install the service. They told me it was the only good way to configure the WiFi (!) and that they had to check a task in their technician to do list that they “walked the consumer through installing the app”.

Horrible consumer experience. Between the borderline lies and the nefarious push for the app, if I had had any other choice I would have rejected the installation on the spot. But alas xfinity was literally the only provider that could offer service with any decent speed.