
South Korea bans unremovable mobile bloatware - mschuster91
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-01/25/bloatware
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RivieraKid
I'm surprised that so many people believe in the free market ideology (e.g.
market regulation is always wrong). The error in this type of reasoning is
very simple. They first assume an idealized market model and then derive
conclusions from it – but the idealized market is just too different from
real-world markets. It's really that simple but many really smart people fall
for it.

~~~
icebraining
I'm sorry, but you're committing an error in your reasoning: one doesn't need
to assume that markets are perfect to oppose regulations; one just needs to
consider that, as bad as free markets can be, they're never worse than the
political system that creates the regulations.

 _Arnold Kling endorses free markets not because they are foolproof or
flawless. They aren’t. Arnold supports them because the alternative is
generally much worse: an especially flawed institution that fosters unusual
amounts of foolishness._

[http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/klinging-to-
reality#ax...](http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/klinging-to-
reality#axzz2raDbSmr1)

~~~
RivieraKid
So you think that antitrust laws are wrong?

~~~
nickff
Anti-trust laws are at least poorly implemented, and at worst intended to
protect local special interests (against the trusts and their descendants).

> _" [W]e have no coherent and comprehensive account that differentiates
> between legal and illegal practices. Nor do we have any good way of devising
> remedies in complex cases that don’t create more distortions than the
> illegal practices they are supposed to eliminate."_[1]

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/18/christine-varney-
antitrust-...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/18/christine-varney-antitrust-
opinions-columnists-law.html)

~~~
RivieraKid
That's possible (I have a very vague knowledge of the antitrust laws in the
US). But a good antitrust law is better than no antitrust law. Do you think
that a secret price-setting agreement between AT&T, Verizon and Sprint should
be legal? It would be profitable to these companies. In a model, competetive
market, this wouldn't work, because a competitor would _immediately_ appear on
stage and started offering _equivalent_ products for lower price. But the
actual market is absolutely different, that's why regulation is needed.

~~~
icebraining
Have you considered that the US mobile market may be less competitive
_because_ of other regulations? Who assigns spectrum and shuts down unlicensed
providers?

~~~
RivieraKid
Yes, that's certainly possible. My position is that zero regulation is often
not the optimal amount of regulation.

~~~
icebraining
Regulation is an ill-defined concept, so that statement is meaningless to me.
If you mean the same as when people usually call "unregulated", which actually
means heavily but baldy regulated, then we're in agreement.

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nasmorn
This is why I sold my wife's Samsung and got her an iPhone again. I rather pay
700 for something made to delight me then 300 for something that can be used
to show me crap apps

~~~
w1ntermute
This is a false dichotomy. The Nexus 5 is $349 _off-contract_ and has no
bloatware. The Moto X is going on sale for just $300 off-contract tomorrow
(the regular off-contract price being $400).

~~~
rryan
The Moto X comes with unremovable bloatware if you are on Verizon.

~~~
hhsnopek
That's if you get it though Verizon, its better to (byod), not buy on
contract...

~~~
twiceaday
I think the point is that, regardless of how you get your iPhone, an iPhone
will not have bloatware pre-installed. Same thing for Macs.

~~~
w1ntermute
And regardless of how you get your iPhone, you are stuck with Safari as your
default browser. I would rather buy a phone that has bloatware (that can be
disabled) than buy a phone on which I am not free to change the default
applications.

That said, you can have the best of both worlds by buying a Nexus device.

~~~
ENGNR
That's what I thought, but there are actually a bunch of Google apps that
can't be uninstalled too.

My old Galaxy Nexus became unusable as Google services got more aggressive
(eating all the RAM if background service calls failed due to poor
connection). The phone would literally restart in the middle of every third
phone call, but the option to uninstall the main culprits like Google Currents
was (is?) disabled. Sure I can install cyanogen, but I specifically bought the
nexus to save having to do that.

~~~
jdhendrickson
I know it doesn't matter to you now but you could disable currents from it's
own settings and never have it start again.

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malandrew
Hopefully this means I might actually be able to remove the Apple Stocks app
and Game Center app.

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mschuster91
One minor technical difference: you don't need to actually flash a new OS to
your device to remove Android bloatware, "/system/app mover" will do the
trick.

Of course this does not help if the manufacturer replaced core stock Android
software with their own (Samsung), but at least in the case of Samsung I can't
really complain on their replacements.

~~~
vsviridov
Doesn't the phone needs to be rooted for that to work? And rooting normally
voids the warranty.

~~~
mschuster91
Rooting and flashing another firmware is an entirely different process!

Rooting usually involves setting a configuration flag, maybe hacking the
bootloader, which is for most devices a point and click op. Flashing a
firmware is "real" hacking compared to rooting!

~~~
vsviridov
Well, the average user does not know how to do neither, and removing system
applications (all bloatware is set as system application) is impossible unless
the phone is rooted.

What is the average joe to do to get rid of all the crap that inhibits
performance and drains the battery at double the speed to boot?

~~~
robocat
Most crapware can be disabled. Not a great UX, but at least you can do
something about it without rooting or flashing.

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znowi
Apparently, South Koreans got fed up with Samsung "additions" :)

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tn13
This unwarranted government intervention is not good though I hate the
bloatware.

Everytime I visit my parents I end up spending half an hour removing browser
toolbars, make your PC fast software. So I bought them a brand new Lenovo
laptop just to find that there were 22 different kind of bloatware from DNS
related stuff to browser toolbars to some weird webcam and what not software.

No matter how much I hate them, these bloatware help reduce prices of the
laptops making them more affordable to many. Let the market function well.
Government intervention is unwarranted.

~~~
joosters
How much money do you reckon they saved on the laptop? How much is your time
worth?

~~~
cmaggard
Are you implying that parent should be charging his or her parents for the
work, or that he or she should cover the difference out of pocket?

~~~
joosters
I was implying that the money saved on the laptop is pretty small, so this
'benefit' to laptop owners is pretty insignificant and totally outweighed by
the extra hassle or loss in performance / reliability of the computer.

And I'd recommend to anyone doing tech support for parents that they carefully
guide them into purchasing a decent, maintainable machine. It's not up to me
to tell OP how that gets paid for. (I've ended up buying my dad a computer to
avoid him picking up a 'bargain' machine from the supermarket, just because
it'd be me that ends up fixing/reinstalling that crap and recovering data...)

~~~
tn13
Your observation is true for techies but not the general population.
Understand that if there was no benefit to putting bloatware no company would
have spent their resources on it. For me the benefit of saving $20 is small
but not for many people out there. I know many people who think Macbooks are
just white colored laptops.

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pippy
Will this apply to exported phones as well? I would assume that Samsung phones
are produced in China and exported globally, not even touching South Korean
shores.

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kijin
Most definitely not.

Some of the bloatware comes directly from Samsung, but a lot of the rest needs
to be customized for each carrier. Samsung probably uses a separate disk image
for each carrier, so it would be trivial to add the "bloatware removal"
feature only to disk images made for some carriers and not others.

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qwerta
Why people pay $700 for phone full of ads?

I got android phone from china. Battery 3x larger than Galaxy, 1/3 price and
no bloatware. Lenovo has good build quality.

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asdfologist
As much as I hate bloatware, this is another example of unwarranted
regulation. Encourage more competition in the mobile carrier space and the
free market will solve this better than any government can.

~~~
aluhut
Why is this unwarranted?

The free market is there but we still have bloatware.

~~~
vinkelhake
Road to hell, good intentions etc...

Does it need to be a regulation? Silly regulations is what made South Korea
entirely dependent on Internet Explorer.

~~~
acdha
You're engaging in the Libertarian vice with the simplistic assumption that
all regulations are created equal:

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/08/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/08/the_libertarian.html)

South Korea chose to mandate a technology rather than the desired outcome and
never to update that law. They could alternatively have mandated multi-factor
authentication or even simply made banks liable for any fraudulent transaction
without any discussion of technology at all. These are all regulations but
would affect the market in very different ways.

~~~
vinkelhake
No, I don't think all regulations are created equal, but thanks for playing.

I have no problem with regulations in general. From the start here I said
"silly regulations". Trying to combat bloatware by simply banning them is, in
my opinion, silly. Even if you establish that this problem is so big that the
government needs to get involved, there are other tools at their disposal. Tax
incentives is one such tool.

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ommunist
At last. Sip of water in hell. This should be done by every phones producer
who cares about their good name. Just dreaming.

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dschiptsov
That means they ban Windows Phone or just Samsung's "theme" for Android?)

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ytch
Android is open only when your time is free

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VLM
Can't happen here soon enough.

