
Zuckerberg Denounces Apple's Monopolistic “Stranglehold” on Your iPhone - elsewhen
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/zuckerberg-apple-monopoly
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buran77
Wonder how much of this is payback for things like the cancerous Facebook
Onavo app being banned by Apple, or any of the other measures Apple took
against Facebook's practices, especially the ones coming with iOS 14 (like ad
tracking restrictions). I doubt a man with Zuckerberg's ethics gives a dead
rat's ass about Apple's practices being "harmful to customers".

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glofish
One of those situations where just looking at who is complaining and what they
are saying makes you take the opposite side without even caring about the
issue.

Zuckerberg the champion of openness and battling monopolies.

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altcognito
Zuckerberg saying something negative about a company is a pretty good signal
that company is doing something right.

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condercet
"CEO of horizontally integrated monopolistic anticompetitive conglomerate
denounces competitor as monopolistic"

~~~
JetSpiegel
"CEO of horizontally integrated monopolistic anticompetitive conglomerate
denounces vertically integrated monopolistic anticompetitive competitor."

It's like something out of Flatland.

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karmafish
What about Facebook's stranglehold on social networking? Or as we old folks
used to call it... society.

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Lio
“Monopolistic Stranglehold”?

Mr Kettle we have a collect call from a Mr Pot.

Facebook is the company that tries to disable copy and paste in their web app
to stop you copying events to your native calendar or sharing them with anyone
outside of their walled garden.

They actually spent time and effort breaking that, the petty bastards.

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mooneater
Lets see an open social graph, Mark

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jasode
_> Zuckerberg also criticized a change in Apple’s upcoming iOS 14 operating
system for iPhones and iPads that would make it much harder for companies like
Facebook to target people using those devices with ads. Zuckerberg estimated
that Facebook’s ad targeting on iPhones and iPads would lose about 50% of its
effectiveness once iOS 14 was released and suggested that if Facebook could
distribute its apps outside the App Store, it could avoid that kind of
scenario._

It's scenarios like the above from a powerful company like Facebook that would
make them financially incentivized to put their own Facebook App Store on
iPhones. That way, they can program their iOS app with any invasive techniques
that hurts the user. To counteract that, I prefer that Apple be the only
approved app store.

Although I don't use Facebook, my family in other countries are dependent on
Whatsapp to communicate and I'd rather have Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp all
get vetted by Apple's approval process than Zuckerberg's self-serving team.

As for the common counterpoint of _" giving iPhone customers the _option_ of
alternative app stores does not affect me at all because I can choose to only
use Apple App Store"_ ... that's not true. The part missing in that argument
is that _some companies (e.g. Facebook) with essential apps are very powerful_
in relation to the individual smartphone customer. To counterbalance that
force, Apple is one of the few corporations big and powerful enough to push
back against Zuckerberg. (E.g. previous examples: [1][2])

Yes, I know the majority of HN developers want control of the "device I they
own" and I understand that. However, they don't speak for everyone and the
iPhone is also something _I own_ and it works better for me if influential
(and sometimes shady) apps are not purposely pulled off of Apple's App Store
and put into a Facebook App Store, Uber App Store, Buzzfeed App Store, etc.

For my home desktop pc, I can load any software I want and I prefer that
control. However, I don't think it's a contradiction that I prefer my iPhone
to be locked down.

EDIT to reply: I don't work for Apple and can't control what they do. Apple
may open up the iPhone to other app stores or they may not -- without my
permission. Therefore, stating _my preference_ for iPhone policy does not
restrict others' freedom. Also, my family depends on Whatsapp _to earn money_
so alternatives such as Telegram, Signal, etc are irrelevant because their
business relationships already use Whatsapp.

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Examples of Facebook abusing its internal testing account:

[1] Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps (theverge.com):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035834)

[2] Apple leaves Facebook offices in disarray after revoking app permissions
(theguardian.com):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19044728](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19044728)

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coryrc
"my family in other countries are dependent on Whatsapp"

No, they're not. You should not get to restrict others' freedom because you
are too lazy to convince your family too live your values.

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roastedjalapeno
I am okay with it.

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Gys
Pretty sure he is mainly yealous

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person_of_color
Wasn’t he trying to do the exact same thing in India?

