[HN Gopher] Our app was banned because the button says "Report U...
___________________________________________________________________
Our app was banned because the button says "Report User" and not
just "Report"
Author : igitur
Score : 325 points
Date : 2021-03-15 09:56 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| threatofrain wrote:
| What's hostile is the timing and bluntness of Google's treatment
| of developers on their platform, as well as the difficulty of
| getting a decent human conversation with the party you're doing
| business with.
|
| But if Google sets clear rules about how your bad people/behavior
| reporting button must look, I don't see Obvious fault in such
| policy.
| creshal wrote:
| When did Google ever set clear rules? It's all rubber
| paragraphs that are enforced at the whim of anonymous
| bureaucrats who will never be held responsible for whatever
| decisions they make.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > enforced at the whim of anonymous bureaucrats
|
| Not all of whom are human.
| mcny wrote:
| You could argue that someone or a some group asked for a
| change order and/or approved a change request with a "bot"
| or a piece of code.
| tommilukkarinen wrote:
| This is the other side of the Play-store problem. The other side
| is the tax.
|
| Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business at
| any time. The reason can be 'new policy', 'misunderstanding' or
| something more problematic, such as influence from your
| competitor to the employee.
|
| A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away from
| some random employee.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Except it's not, they give you time to comply with the policy.
| kenrose wrote:
| How much time was given in this instance?
| drcongo wrote:
| I don't think they read the tweets.
| avereveard wrote:
| "they should have built their own phone with their own app
| store"
|
| - the hn community, when it suited their political agenda
| throwaways885 wrote:
| What political agenda?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| My guess: when it was about banning right-wing focused apps
| like Gab.
| simion314 wrote:
| When the giants banned that app after the incidents in 6
| January in US, you see a lot of comment like "free markets"
| and build your own platform from scratch including banks,
| ISPs and hosting.
|
| P.S. I am not from US so I am not in a blue or red camp, I
| just don't like it when some big corporation can lock you
| out of your account, decide what books you can read, what
| apps you can install or brick your application/device ( I
| am thinking at the case where Photoshop stopped working in
| Venezuela and how on some systems the device will contact
| the mother ships at boot/resume or when you launch an apo
| for "security" reasons that could be used in future to
| block you using the device or app)
| throwaways885 wrote:
| The problem with that line of thinking is the book
| burners will automatically assume your politics. Sad.
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing violent
| insurrection in response to independently certified
| elections.
|
| That isn't the case here however and I expect some
| resolution will come.
| elastolin wrote:
| > I'm okay with deplatforming, but only when it suits me
|
| Jesus, just shut the fuck up.
| simion314 wrote:
| How do you draw the line exactly? What if someone used FB
| or the official Appole/Google email/chat apps to start a
| revolution in some country? For illegal stuff you have
| laws and examples, for this stuff you need to guess what
| Silicon Valley does not like and censor your content just
| in case.
|
| For the case you mention, do you think it helped? As I
| said I am not from US so I have no idea if the were any
| effects.
| throwaways885 wrote:
| Why didn't the primary app involved banned then?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/opinion/facebook-far-
| righ...
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| Not sure Facebook was primary but.. Did people really
| post about storming the capitol using their real names?
| throwaways885 wrote:
| Of course they did - after all, they wouldn't do it if
| they thought they were in the wrong. In fairness, the
| vast majority of those who went to the capitol that day
| were there for the Trump rally, not smashing up congress.
| myko wrote:
| Parler's stated goal was to allow that type of speech
| while Facebook at least put a cursory amount of effort in
| blocking it.
| bavell wrote:
| Hmm, so as long as the firehose of vomit continues to
| spew from the PR dept, it's all good? All you have to do
| is make it look like you're doing something?
|
| Never used parler and not defending them but idk why
| facebook gets a free pass from you, they are far more to
| blame for the events that transpired IMO.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Still claiming it was a "violent insurrection", even when
| experts have been clear this wasn't one
| (https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/why-this-wasnt-a-
| coup-c...)? A handful of people stormed the Capitol, and
| nearly none of them were there to stage an
| "insurrection". Most were just there as protesters who
| got carried away. There were also tens of thousands more
| in DC participating in rallies and protests without ever
| having stormed the Capitol as well.
|
| Also, this was far from the only time protesters invaded
| the Capitol. It was the only time so much attention was
| given to it by news media and social media alike,
| however. I'm sure you spoke up when hundreds stormed the
| Capitol during Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, where
| hundreds were arrested, correct (https://thehill.com/home
| news/senate/405500-212-protesters-to...)?
|
| As for Parler - with millions of users, almost 100% of
| content being completely fine, and with more of the riot
| being planned on Facebook, banning Parler was simply an
| ideological power move by left biased tech companies who
| have no respect for free speech principles.
| tsdlts wrote:
| Very good, let's petition to ban signal. In fact, let's
| ban encryption altogether as such a technology can be
| used to coordinate terrorist attacks.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > I'm fine with banning apps that permit organizing
| violent insurrection in response to independently
| certified elections.
|
| First of all, Trump was a sitting President.
|
| Second of all, the left/DNC spent 8 months burning
| American downtowns, which is the real "violent
| insurrection."
|
| Third, there were no "independently certified elections,"
| unless you mean the one that was overturned during the
| 2020 election, and the one in 2021.
| IndySun wrote:
| Simion314, If you would indulge another non-political
| poster. Playing devils advocate with and exploring your
| ps...
|
| >some big corporation
|
| What about a small one?
|
| >lock you out, decide what you read, apps you install or
| brick your application
|
| Are these an abuse of power? Illegal? Unethical? Is it
| their right to do these things to maintain some focus?
| (The example here is often that one does not want
| profanity, sexual content, violence content where any
| children or family are involved - if that is acceptable
| to you, why not the above?)
|
| ps, I also hate it when software won't work without a
| 'security' handshake.
| simion314 wrote:
| I am for moderating stuff in general. So if you have a
| forum and want to ban politics or religious topic that is
| fine IMO.
|
| I would also be fine if Google or Apple would ban an
| application because it does something illegal or it's
| name/icon/description is offensive and it could "pollute"
| the store listing. I don't like when the giants try to
| ban some small applications because of user generated
| content but they never ban YouTube(remember the issues
| with pedos?)
|
| The issue I have with the giants is that this is not a
| "Free market", you have only 2 players that are smart
| enough to correctly play the "prisoner dilemma" so both
| win.
|
| Maybe in that political case they were right to ban that
| application but is still uncomfortable to know that 99%
| of mobile market is censored by the 2 giants.
|
| Conclusion: Moderating content on your website is fine,
| but banning legal apps or websites because should not be
| easy, there should be a police,judge or some other
| official request behind it at least.
| IndySun wrote:
| Thank you. We disagree on little. However one should be
| careful with broad terms like' offence'. To whom do you
| allocate the task of deciding for you what is offensive,
| is the tricky part.
|
| The silicon corporates do move the goalposts to suit.
| Governments are not fair all the time. Where you are born
| impacts hugely on your life. And the laughably named
| 'free market' has the same flaws.
|
| All of these issues we are discussing will be alleviated,
| though not eradicated (impossible), the more we move
| towards an equal and fairer society.
| salawat wrote:
| >I also hate it when software won't work without a
| 'security' handshake.
|
| You are in for a bad time unless you go full FLOSS. The
| days of shareware and freedom from stupid centralized
| license enforcement is long dead, sadly.
|
| Don't bother bringing that up on HN though. The Upton
| Sinclairism "It is difficult to get someone to understand
| that which their paycheck fepends on them not
| understanding" applies.
|
| Unless of course you're talking TLS, in which case that
| handshaking is cool, and responsible, and if done right
| transparent to the end user.
| simion314 wrote:
| FLOSS is great but not enough. There are more and more
| places where you need a smartphone and an application (or
| else you can't use a service or it will be 100 times more
| time consuming) IMO all smartphones should have an unlock
| code. it will be printed in the box you b ought the
| phone, if you use that you unlock your phone and can
| install FLOSS apps in it. (now the Apple fanboys will try
| to change my mind, I will not change my mind, some
| Android smartphones have a more simpler method to unlock
| side loading and Google is still full with money, in fact
| when you go to an official page for an app they link you
| to the Store and never found a page that gives you the
| installer.
| fsflover wrote:
| > IMO all smartphones should have an unlock code
|
| They should not be locked in the first place. GNU/Linux
| smartphones come to mind. (Anbox can be used for Android
| apps)
| Shish2k wrote:
| "Why are we punishing the guilty and letting the innocent go
| free? It's hypocritical to treat different situations
| differently!" /s
|
| Or to try and raise the level of discussion: "The HN
| community" is thousands of people who rarely agree 100% on
| anything. Pointing out that you can find examples on both
| sides of an issue isn't a huge revelation.
|
| (Personally I'm a fan of building an alternative to the
| google / apple duopoly, regardless of political affiliation
| :) )
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > _A 'power to destroy business', should not be a click away
| from some random employee._
|
| It exists everywhere, it is called monopoly and this is only an
| example thereof.
|
| Businesses could also, for instance, be destroyed by ARM
| Holdings refusing to license the _ARM_ architecture to them, or
| Valve deciding to pull a game from _Steam_.
|
| Especially with technology, there are a great deal of
| monopolies that exist.
| josephcsible wrote:
| ARM can't unilaterally revoke a contract (and even if they
| tried, it'd end up in court; your production lines wouldn't
| just suddenly stop working one day), and there's plenty of
| ways to distribute games to users on PCs other than Steam.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > _ARM can 't unilaterally revoke a contract (and even if
| they tried, it'd end up in court; your production lines
| wouldn't just suddenly stop working one day)_
|
| And the only reason Google can do that in this case is
| because the terms were specified as such, and ARM Holdings
| could do that too.
|
| > _and there 's plenty of ways to distribute games to users
| on PCs other than Steam._
|
| And there is also a plenty of ways to distribute _Android_
| software other than the _Google Play Store_ , but the
| effect in both cases is that one's business will likely die
| being denied access by either.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > And there is also a plenty of ways to distribute
| Android software other than the Google Play Store, but
| the effect in both cases is that one's business will
| likely die being denied access by either.
|
| What's the rationale behind wanting multiple appstores on
| iOS, if multiple appstores on Android has no positive
| effect for developers anyway?
| kjrose wrote:
| On the plus side there are multiple app stores for the android
| and the ability to simply install your app directly to the
| device. So even if Google play store bans you outright you
| aren't dead in the water.
|
| Now that being said. If you are dependent on google for
| revenues...
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| And they can even do it inadvertently. I've run into multiple
| examples recently due to the Android file system becoming ever
| more locked down.
|
| Yes, the vast majority of apps have no business writing to any
| location other than their own storage, and in general even
| reading other areas should be subject to severe restrictions.
|
| However, there are some apps that have a *legitimate* need to
| be able to wander freely through the file system. Specifically,
| apps whose purpose in life is dealing with files.
|
| The latest run-in I've had with this: The Goodsync Android
| client, which now appears to be basically useless. It's a file
| synchronization tool, what good is it if it can't wander where
| the user wants it to? Now I have to plug my phone into the
| computer to do the same task (the file system lockdown doesn't
| apply to access from the PC) that I used to be able to do
| simply by having the phone in the room.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| > Play store employee can ban your app = destroy your business
| at any time
|
| No one forces / forced businesses to rely on apps for their
| business. Websites do exist and work well, so there are
| alternatives.
| kaliali wrote:
| This is what happens when you have shitlibs in control. They want
| to control and keep you down in whatever way possible.
| euph0ria wrote:
| The company I work for has forbidden the use of Google and their
| services such as GCP etc. due to how they treat their Play Store
| developers and other customer, in particular that there never
| seems to be any human being that you can talk to and find out
| what you need to do to fix the situation. We do not want the same
| to occur to our servers or if there is an overflow from Play
| Store ban to GCP etc. The business risk is too high when you rely
| on Google's services.
|
| Some examples:
|
| Terraria banned -
| https://twitter.com/Demilogic/status/1358661840402845696
|
| New project banned - https://medium.com/@amton15127/why-you-
| should-not-use-fireba...
|
| Google bans company -
| https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/8kvias/tifu_by_gettin...
|
| Google bans mail - https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-serf-
| on-googles-farm
|
| Ban app for communicating changes during covid -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221447
|
| Adwords ban - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224791
|
| Serverpunch bad support -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17431609
|
| Delete app - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20826618
|
| Google bans game with pandemic -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229073
|
| Google bans dev with no recourse -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15197357
| swiley wrote:
| Smartphone app development is a poor investment. Just build a
| good website.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Unfortunately, Apple refuses to implement basic features into
| Safari that Chrome and Firefox have supported for a while,
| and they refuse to allow developers to use browser engines
| other than the embedded Safari on iOS. This forces developers
| to release iOS apps if they want to target iOS users.
|
| What we need is some anti-trust litigation with teeth.
| zepto wrote:
| What features?
| jedberg wrote:
| Notifications is the big one. Only way to push a
| notification to a user on iOS is to have an app (even
| through Safari on desktop supports notifications).
| zepto wrote:
| Web notifications aren't power efficient the way APNS
| notifications are.
|
| That's why it's easy to build support for it on Desktop
| safari but not iOS.
|
| I except they'll support Web notifications on iOS once
| the technology is mature enough to meet the power budget.
| derekp7 wrote:
| That brings up a question I've had -- so many web sites seem
| to work better as an app. Is that because app development is
| easier, or is there some things that you can do with an app
| that you can't do through web standards? Specifically what
| types of items can't be [easily] done as a web app but are
| easy as a smartphone app?
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Mostly its just about user data and money. It's AOL all
| over again. Only this time, they just might win.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Apple refuses to implement standards that make web
| applications usable on mobile devices, even though Chrome
| and Firefox have supported them for ages.
| tspike wrote:
| It's because the web was developed as a means for
| delivering documents and app development has been bolted on
| as an afterthought.
| euph0ria wrote:
| Push notifications. One of the primary reasons why
| companies haven't switched to PWA for simple apps.
| derekp7 wrote:
| Then what is that popup I get all the time visiting sites
| that says "Allow site xyz to send notifications"? Is that
| different than push notifications?
| euph0ria wrote:
| Doesn't work on Safari / iOS.
| toast0 wrote:
| App push notifications can be silent, but web based
| notifications can't. That means you can push updated
| content without disturbing the user in an app, but not
| for a webpage.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| Some Google employee usually chimes in on these to provide a
| link to some forum where if you just follow these specific
| steps for one specific problem, you might be able to fix it.
| But it ignores everyone else who doesn't fit into that narrow
| range. Google has worse customer service than Comcast.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is a prime example of why Google and Apple's mobile app
| distribution duopoly needs to be disrupted. They're poor
| stewards of this space, and they've kept an iron grip on the
| mobile app market for over a decade, now.
| hnick wrote:
| It's rife in the industry. The drama this week is that my wife
| can't log in to Facebook because their code generator just
| doesn't work. The number in the app shows up, she types it, but
| she can't log in because apparently it's just wrong.
|
| Due to their marvelous design, you need a personal account to
| run an advertising account for your place of work. Luckily she
| hasn't been logged out on her work laptop yet or she couldn't
| do a large part of her job.
|
| Business support? Yeah good luck, try googling and you'll get
| pages of dead links or suggestions to click something when
| you're already logged in.
| JimDabell wrote:
| If you haven't already, check the time / date / timezone on
| the device that is generating the codes. Facebook uses TOTP
| for this, which is time-based. If the time on your device is
| wrong, the codes will be wrong. I would expect this problem
| to pop up more frequently this time of year due to errors
| relating to daylight saving time.
| justinclift wrote:
| > check the time / date / timezone on the device that is
| generating the codes.
|
| Sounds like that'd be on the FB infrastructure side though?
| remus wrote:
| The clocks on both devices (i.e. fb's server and your
| phone) need to be fairly closely synchronised. TOTP
| effectively encrypts a timestamp using a shared secret
| then decrypts it on the other side and checks you're
| within some bound. If either clock is out it won't work.
| ncallaway wrote:
| TOTP generates the codes on both the client and server
| sides. The user enters the client generated code and the
| server validates it.
|
| So if the time on the client device is wrong (perhaps it
| was manually set and not updated for daylight savings),
| then the server will disagree with what the code should
| be.
| kokx wrote:
| DST has nothing to do with TOTP. The TOTP spec specifies
| that unix time has to be used as the time source, which
| does not have DST.
| JimDabell wrote:
| That doesn't matter, DST-related events can still break
| TOTP.
|
| Example: Device is set to the wrong timezone. It's
| nearby, but the difference between the two timezones is
| that one has DST and one doesn't. DST comes along, either
| the time changes by an hour when it isn't supposed to, or
| it doesn't change when it is supposed to. The most
| visible thing that looks broken to the user is not the
| timezone, but the time. So they adjust the time. The
| user-visible clock is now "correct" for the next six
| months as far as the user sees, but the system clock -
| including UNIX timestamps - is incorrect by an hour. This
| results in broken TOTP.
| kokx wrote:
| I find this awfully thin. About every device that does
| TOTP by default takes its time from the network provider,
| and lets the user set the correct timezone, and makes it
| even really easy to do so. Since most DST settings for
| timezones in the world are quite predictable (yes I am
| aware that there are few that have last-minute changes,
| but most don't, especially not in developed nations),
| most people never have to adjust their timezone because
| of DST.
|
| Though I do suspect that Google Authenticator even has
| some logic to reduce these problems, since you can "sync"
| its time in the settings.
| JimDabell wrote:
| "Lets the user set the correct timezone" is where this
| falls down. The user doesn't always get this right. Once
| that happens, the time looks correct for a while, then
| looks wrong all of a sudden. So they go into their
| settings and manually change the time. At that point
| taking time from the network provider no longer happens,
| because they overrode that.
|
| The predictability of DST doesn't help, and "most people
| never have to adjust their timezone" isn't relevant
| either. Perhaps you didn't fully grasp what was happening
| in the example? All of the machinery works correctly,
| it's just the first time they set up the computer the
| timezone was wrong, or they moved. Everything after that
| point can work correctly, but if that thing is wrong,
| UNIX time will be wrong even if the time looks right to
| the user.
|
| I've literally had to fix this problem for people.
| "Correct" time, incorrect timezone. It's not a
| theoretical example.
| hnick wrote:
| It's the FB app on a new iPhone, set to Sydney where we
| live. There are no DST options I assume "it just works"
| covers all that.
|
| There is an option to resync inside the FB app, which
| refreshes and... doesn't change a thing.
| ryan29 wrote:
| Another good example of an awful implementation can be seen in
| Google Workspace. Sometimes the crappy ML algorithms will
| generate a false positive and suspend an account for a
| suspicious login. Fine. I get it. It's hard to do at scale and
| nothing's perfect.
|
| The thing I'd like to have Google explain to me is why they
| think it's a good idea to bounce incoming mail for a user
| that's been auto-suspended by an algorithm. In what scenario
| would I want that, especially when the account is locked at
| 3:00 AM local time?
|
| That's something that actually happened to me this weekend. For
| anyone at Google, NO ONE wants their incoming email bounced
| because of your crappy ML algorithms.
| house9-2 wrote:
| Same thing happened to me yesterday, I had to switch my MX
| records over to fastmail as that was easier than trying to
| figure out how to resolve the issue with Google directly.
|
| I had been forwarding all of my email from my domain to my
| personal Gmail (the irony) so haven't lost anything except a
| Sundays worth of incoming emails which bounced.
|
| In my case I was still using a free account for my custom
| domain, grandfathered in. I guess I get what I paid for...
| ryan29 wrote:
| Was it your admin account that got locked? That's a big
| fear of mine. If so, did you have any of the account
| recovery options set up? Ex: 2FA, phone number, recovery
| email, etc.?
|
| IMHO a lot of account "security" is intentionally made to
| be overly aggressive so tech companies can lock your
| account and verify your ID / get your phone number. If
| you're using anything for business the only option is to
| diligently set up all the recovery options that are
| available, even though that means giving them a ton of
| personal information.
| tempodox wrote:
| Makes sense. The best thing you can do with Google is to stay
| as far away as possible.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I really don't understand why google doesn't offer some sort of
| human support. It's not terribly hard to implement something
| that is revenue neutral (or even positive), and the customers
| with the most money to spend are really going to want it.
| solarmist wrote:
| Because they're a "tech" company through and through and to
| them it's a step backwards.
| djohnston wrote:
| This seems so unnecessarily hostile. Honestly if I build a side
| project it has to be viable as a web service, I can't imagine
| hinging my business on the arbitrary whims of the apple Google
| duopoly.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| For those not from South Africa, this app is primarily for people
| to be able to get notifications or look up when their area will
| be affected by a "planned power outage", or as Eskom (our state
| owned power utility) refers to it, "load shedding". "Load
| shedding" is enacted whenever they have a power production
| capacity issue where different areas take turns without power so
| as to not let the power grid collapse.
|
| This app aggregates information from various data sources and
| provides push notifications too. It is without a doubt the best
| source of this information and the app being unavailable
| significantly affects the day to day lives of a significant
| portion of the South African population who use it to plan around
| these power outages.
|
| While the app also has a "chat" feature, it's really tangental to
| the primary purpose of the app and I expect that most users of
| the app, like myself, don't use that feature at all and only care
| about knowing when they will be without electricity.
|
| In case you're wondering why they hell we have load shedding,
| it's because Eskom is grossly incompetent. Their incompetence is
| hugely exacerbated by nepitism and corruption where government
| has historically appointed people to Eskom management positions
| solely as "favours", rather than on qualification for the job.
| chmod775 wrote:
| And here's a link to the app:
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ashwhale.s...
| mhuffman wrote:
| This sounds like a nightmare!
|
| Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this
| problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago.
|
| Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them
| incompetent?
| anon19anon wrote:
| Expansion of a thing called Black Economics Empowerment. They
| give out contracts based on the race of the owners. They
| spent billions on black companies that had no clue what they
| were doing, while also firing white male engineers
| throwaway1916 wrote:
| Jacob Zuma happened.
| pistoriusp wrote:
| Corruption.
| throwaway210222 wrote:
| > Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them
| incompetent?
|
| The African National Congress.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| Ah yes because the Nationalist Party was so much better
| during the good old days of apartheid when corruption ran
| at an all-time high.
|
| It does not matter who holds it. Unchecked power always
| corrupts.
| MikeUt wrote:
| Did an equal amount of "load shedding" happen during the
| "good old days"?
| ivanbakel wrote:
| Would the answer to that question be a fair analysis? A
| great deal has changed about the country between the
| successive governments - not just the political power
| structure. Population figures, human development, the
| march of technology etc, all affect energy demands.
|
| The most optimistic view would be that an energy company
| that operates without blackouts in an apartheid state
| should not be applauded for its performance under
| artificially-depressed demand.
| MikeUt wrote:
| The current blackouts were blamed on corruption, followed
| by "the good old days of apartheid when corruption ran at
| an all-time high", implying blackouts were just as bad in
| the past.
|
| It would be nice to first clear up the factual issue of
| whether blackouts have grown more or less frequent,
| before jumping ahead to the moral calculus of who should
| be applauded or condemned more.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| >implying blackouts were just as bad in the past.
|
| I don't understand where this implication comes from. In
| claiming that current governmental corruption is the
| cause of the current blackouts, the throwaway commenter
| implied that blackouts were less prevalent in the past.
| The reply then objected to the idea that the previous
| government was less corrupt - but the opposite statement
| does not require that blackouts were just as prevalent.
| It is possible that the previous government was corrupt,
| but any number of other factors meant that the energy
| grid did not require load shedding.
|
| That's why I asked if the historical frequency of
| blackouts is really a fair analysis? Is it worth
| "clearing up", given that blackouts are not a direct
| function of corruption?
| MikeUt wrote:
| > I don't understand where this implication comes from.
|
| From "blackouts are due to corruption -> corruption was
| just as bad in the past". Especially since blackouts were
| the only symptom of corruption mentioned. Yes, it's
| possible blackouts didn't manifest due to different
| reasons, despite equal corruption - that's why it's an
| _implication_.
|
| > Is it worth "clearing up", given that blackouts are not
| a direct function of corruption?
|
| A simple hypothetical "Yes blackouts are more common, but
| the old government was just as corrupt due to <list of
| reasons>" would have been much more informative, so yes I
| do think it's worth clearing up.
|
| Are we supposed to compare governments without comparing
| the state of the country they ran (run)? Except, of
| course, apartheid - _that_ doesn 't get left out.
| southafrica4 wrote:
| I lived in South Africa during apartheid and I
| experienced about the same consistency of electricity as
| I do now in the United States. It was a rare occurrence
| rendall wrote:
| I imagine it's difficult to address problems with the
| government if, whenever anyone does so, someone brings up
| the former government.
|
| Bring up slavery in Dubai, and people start talking about
| the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism.
|
| It gives people of the present a free pass to behave
| reprehensibly, because other people in the past behaved
| reprehensibly
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| You should read the comments.
|
| 1. It was a throwaway. 2. The reply was... "It does not
| matter who holds it. Unchecked power always corrupts."
|
| The problem with the ANC is the same issue as The
| Nationalist. Without strong opposition and even a
| stronger free press, unchecked power always leads to
| corruption.
| devtul wrote:
| So when you see ANC opposition, you promptly bash it on
| the head and bring up past failures. Are you trolling?
| rendall wrote:
| > _" The reply was... "It does not matter who holds it.
| Unchecked power always corrupts.""_
|
| I would love it if that was indeed your reply. If your
| reply were indeed simply "It does not matter who holds
| it. Unchecked power always corrupts." I would upvote the
| hell out of that. It's true and eternally true. Well,
| almost, because when I am World Dictator for Life I will
| rule only with profound, infinite beneficence and
| enlightenment.
|
| I'd like to refer you to this tweet: https://twitter.com/
| lofimandala/status/1371310164821774337
|
| In response to someone pointing out that Dubai is built
| on slave labor, this person felt the need to say:
|
| _" And European cities weren't? Don't get me wrong,
| slave labor is abhorrent but it's telling it only gets
| invoked when certain countries participate while the
| entirety of places like the United States were built upon
| imperialism, slavery, and genocide."_
|
| I am certain, if confronted, this person would point out
| the *"...Slave labor is abhorrent..." part of the reply,
| but it is nevertheless difficult for me to understand how
| the observation as a whole helps current slaves, of which
| there may be 40 million in the world. "Slave labor is
| abhorrent, but..." is a sentence that will not end at a
| good place.
|
| Reeling from the disturbing sight of modern people
| defending or whatabouting modern slavery, I rebound into
| this thread. Just, please, you must criticize evil and
| corruption that exists now, in the present.
| javajosh wrote:
| The general term for what you describe is "whataboutism".
| It is a rhetorical technique that allows one to defend
| the indefensible. First popularized by Russia, the
| technique has become a favorite among ~40% of Americans.
|
| It's a favorite technique to defend the abuse of power.
| "Yes, I abused my power, but so does everyone with
| power," is a cynical, unfalsifiable and worryingly
| effective argument.
| igitur wrote:
| It's two-sided.
|
| Apartheid South Africa's government focused on providing
| electricity mostly for the white minority, which it did well,
| but the majority of South African, especially in the rural
| regions, lived with no or unreliable power supply. Post 1994,
| with removal of sanctions, the economy opened up. There was a
| lot of international investment in South Africa. The economy
| grew strongly and the demand for electricity significantly
| increased.
|
| The supply side was woefully mismanaged and didn't nearly
| keep up with the pace of the growth in demand. Corruption is
| definitely a key reason, as others here mention, with the
| effect being that power plants are not adequatly maintained
| and new planned power plants going far over budget and
| missing deadlines [1].
|
| Besides corruption, there are some policitical constraints.
| Eskom provides power to municipalities who often don't pay.
| Soweto, with 1.3 million residents owe Eskom in excess of $1
| billion [2]. The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has
| ruled that Eskom is not allowed to cut power to non-paying
| municipalities [3]. In contrast to a free-market system,
| Eskom price hikes are subject to regulatory approval [4].
|
| One could debate the relative significance of each of these
| factors, but it's by no means due to only a single one of
| these.
|
| [1] https://www.news24.com/fin24/Budget/how-medupi-and-
| kusile-ar...
|
| [2] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-10-18-00-why-we-dont-pay-
| for-p...
|
| [3] https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/eskom-cannot-
| cut-el...
|
| [4] https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-
| deals/electric...
| brodo wrote:
| OMG. This is as bad or even worse than Texas or California...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| There is no comparison.
| pistoriusp wrote:
| It is far worse, but South Africa has an inept and corrupt
| government, I wonder what the excuse is for Texas?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why would you think it is any different? ERCOT was
| recommended to protect its power generation capabilities
| from severe winter weather for over 10 years, yet the
| Republican leadership did nothing about it. That's either
| corruption or sheer ineptitude.
| signal11 wrote:
| I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of electric
| power distribution, Texas too has an inept government
| that's beholden to certain vested interests in the garb of
| "free markets".
|
| This is a state that has fetishized "light touch
| regulation" so much that it, for most of the state, has its
| own grid to avoid dealing with Federal authorities. And
| repeatedly failed to take action to get power companies to
| winterize their equipment even though cold snaps in Texas
| are not unheard of -- they've had disruption in 1989 and
| 2011, in addition to other near misses.
|
| Let's not even get into the wisdom of a market that allows
| Griddy to offer wholesale prices without caps to retail
| customers.
| youdontknwtexas wrote:
| The worst part of living through a few cold, powerless
| days in Travis county is now having to listen to
| insufferable fuckheads like you wax on about the
| "fetishes" in our government.
|
| Texas isn't actually all that conservative compared to a
| lot of states, it's just a stereotype. The three big
| cities, which make up a huge portion of the population,
| are racially diverse and politically Democrat.
|
| For instance Texas has mandatory annual vehicle
| inspection and front plates, regulations that don't exist
| in some states in the Midwest.
|
| I do hope we address the winterization gaps in our
| infrastructure because the state regulations, which are
| stronger than the Federal ones, weren't enforced, but we
| can do it without the comments from the peanut gallery.
|
| The other grids have suffered blackouts in the last
| thirty years, too. I remember one in the nineties in part
| of the Eastern grid that lasted two weeks that family
| lived through, and blackouts in the Northeast and
| California in recent memory.
|
| Get off your high horse.
| marcusverus wrote:
| > I suspect the truth is, in the narrow domain of
| electric power distribution, Texas too has an inept
| government...
|
| This is an absurd comparison. South Africa owns and runs
| its power utility. The result is that they struggle to
| provide electricity on an ongoing basis. According to
| Wikipedia, small business owners in South Africa said
| that load shedding was the number one challenge that they
| faced in Q1 of 2019.[0]
|
| Texas does not own or run its utilities. They are
| privately run, and are given wide latitude by the state.
| The result is that the worst of the utilities are
| _tragically_ only able to provide 99.95% uptime, with
| _some_ power consumers experiencing outages for a few
| days per decade.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_energy_crisis
| vermilingua wrote:
| So hang on, why is it that South Africa is "corrupt", but
| Texas is "beholden to certain vested interests"?
| mokus wrote:
| Did any one person say both of those things?
| edoceo wrote:
| That's just more words for corrupt
| lovegoblin wrote:
| The distinction-without-a-difference between these two
| phrases is exactly the point of the comment you're
| responding to.
| CamTin wrote:
| ...and presumably also the point of the comment _it_ was
| responding to.
| [deleted]
| tremon wrote:
| Load shedding is the correct technical term for it. It's not
| just a South African thing either, industrial consumers in
| Europe have the same stipulation in their power contracts: in
| case of emergency, the power company (network operator) may
| choose to suspend power delivery to protect the grid.
|
| However, in the EU this 1) isn't a regular occurrence, and 2)
| the grid has a tiered system for load shedding. I can't find a
| reference for the tier classifications right now, but if I
| remember correctly: tier 1 consumers (the ones who will be
| disconnected first) are heavy industries with huge power draw,
| tier 2 are other commercial uses, tier 3 is residential, and
| tier 4 is critical infrastructure (emergency services).
|
| I don't think I've ever experienced a load shedding event that
| affected residential areas. There have been local blackouts but
| I don't recall any grid-wide emergency events.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| American here--I've experienced load shedding once. The
| problem was a lineman started a wildfire that took out the
| primary source of power for the town. Until the line was
| repaired there was nowhere near enough power available, they
| directed what they had to things like the hospital etc and
| everyone else was in the dark.
|
| There is also the mess we currently have in California. High
| winds blew stuff into high power lines and started a bad
| wildfire. In the lawsuits that followed the utility was told
| to shut down the risky lines under high wind conditions--
| which of course causes massive outages. Of course the utility
| is "at fault" because the ecology types blocked efforts to
| keep the vegetation away from the lines.
| fragmede wrote:
| The utility is at fault because they didn't spend enough
| money on maintenance. As a for-profit company in an
| established industry, PG&E won't ever be able to "pop" like
| a SaaS company does, so profits and salaries for executives
| and shareholders have to come from somewhere. Spending less
| on maintenance won't bite you - until it does - but until
| then, thats money that can be put elsewhere like CEO
| pockets.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| PG&E is at fault because they refused to properly maintain
| the power lines, and lines that had been hanging for years
| from the same supports where the supports failed are the
| cause of the fires.
|
| See here: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/long-term-
| wear-found-o...
|
| https://www.kqed.org/news/11792217/1987-report-suggested-
| pge...
|
| I can't find it right now, but there was an absolutely
| fantastic RCA report that included all the information on
| the wearing down of the hooks and how this could have all
| been prevented.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Texas had tier 3 level of load shedding recently.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Based on the incompetent decisions that ERCOT has made over
| the past few "severe weather events", I would say ERCOT and
| ESKOM are eerily similar.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made _during
| the weather event_ were all very competent. They kept the
| grid from collapsing, which was their job.
|
| The fact that extensive load shedding and brownouts etc
| needed to happen was not a result of decisions made
| during the weather event, but lack of infrastructure
| investment over decades (that may or may not have been
| under the control of ERCOT, rather than the legislature
| and state government regulators, but ERCOT certainly was
| on board with/lobbying for the conditions of deregulation
| that led to them).
|
| During the weather event... ERCOT, the grid operator, did
| their job very competently. Making more capacity come
| online or reducing consumer demand was not really
| something that could be done during the weather event.
| They kept the grid from collapsing -- and it nearly did
| collapse, it was a close call. That was their job during
| the event.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > All my reading said
|
| Comparing that to "All my expierincing" first hand. Not
| even close to the same thing. They would not have been in
| the stressed situtation in the first place had they
| enforced the recommended corrections for cold weather
| protection in the first place. The fact that they had to
| turn off power generation because pipes were freezing at
| the generating stations is an absolute joke, and is the
| prime cause of the stress.
|
| The local weather forecasts remind people to move plants
| indoors, cover exposed plumbing, etc. Maybe they should
| also start including a friendly reminder to the local
| power plants to also cover exposed plumbing, but why
| would they listen to that when they've ignored government
| sanctioned reports from investigations into previous
| failures?
|
| > ERCOT, the grid operator, did their job very
| competently "Turn off the power so the demand goes away"
| Check "Issue rolling black outs so that the demand is
| lowered and manageable, and give people a fighting
| chance" Nope. These were absolutely not rolling black
| outs, but static black outs. The method they chose to
| "save the grid" was just as incompetent as not
| maintaining their systems in the first place.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Thank you for more info!
|
| Do you know of any good journalistic coverage of this,
| since apparently I've been reading bad stuff?
|
| It seems important info for those who don't have first-
| hand professional experience to get.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I read articles from every where. Local stations had
| coverage of the damage and lack of "rolling" black outs,
| national outlets had coverage as well, and I'm pretty
| sure I remember seeing international coverage from BBC,
| Daily Mail, etc. I can't remember where I was seeing the
| scathing reports on ERCOT's ineptitude, but they were
| plenty.
|
| https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/17/texas-power-grid-
| fai...
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9270343/Texas-
| perfe...
|
| just a snippet of a quick search from soooo many articles
| msandford wrote:
| > All my reading said that the decisions ERCOT made
| during the weather event were all very competent. They
| kept the grid from collapsing, which was their job.
|
| I respectfully disagree. Demand might have been twice
| what supply was, but the way the load shedding was done
| wasn't smart at all. The rolling blackouts were done on a
| roughly 18-48 hour basis, i.e. if you lost power you
| probably lost it for at least 18 hours and I know plenty
| of people who lost it for much longer, up to 48 hours.
|
| If demand was double what the supply was then it should
| have been possible to give people power for say 2 hours
| every 4 hours. Or maybe 6 hours every 12 hours. If demand
| outstripped supply by a factor of 4 then 3 hours every 12
| hours.
|
| But that's not what happened. A lot of houses have gas
| furnaces but they need electricity to run the fans and
| the ignition system and such. People died in their houses
| either from the cold or from running their cars in their
| garages trying to stay warm. A lot of pipes were burst
| due to not enough heat in the buildings.
|
| I can think of at least a dozen ways in which the load
| shedding could have been better managed. I wouldn't agree
| that it was very competent.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _If demand was double what the supply was then it
| should have been possible to give people power for say 2
| hours every 4 hours_
|
| The problem is if that electricity is being used for
| heat, the draw of the 2 hour on periods will increase to
| make up for the time off. Perhaps even resulting in more
| total usage, because when power is on, people will set
| the thermostat to 80 instead of 65, anticipating the
| power going off and it getting colder. When really you
| need everyone's expectations of comfort to change to 40
| degrees (half the delta T).
|
| The only way to win and supply some power to all houses
| is to keep the duty cycle so low that the amount of
| resistive heating equipment becomes the limiting factor
| (1 hour every 6 hours?). I don't know if they could have
| managed this, but it's certainly more complicated to
| figure out than simply lowering the period of the rolling
| blackouts.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Only so much of the load is heating, and heaters can only
| draw so much current.
|
| Even 1 hour every few would stop food from rotting and
| let people do important tasks.
| igitur wrote:
| This app is also known for its humorous take the quite serious
| subject matter. The WHAT'S NEW section in the Google Play Store
| is known for sarcastic titbits with the fictional Jeff working
| hard to keep us up to date with the imminent darkness. The
| app's name itself, Eskom se Push, is wordplay on an extremely
| vulgar South African insult and feeds into the popular dislike
| of Eskom.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Unfortunately, an under-moderated chat feature is considered a
| risk these days, like an open email relay or an open proxy. I
| personally think Google erred too far on the side of caution
| here, but developers should be aware that chat features aren't
| as cheap to add as they used to be; they change the risk model
| of the app.
| yawaramin wrote:
| This. Another example:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295496/malaysiakini-
| gui...
|
| > Malaysian news site fined $124,000 for five reader comments
|
| > Malaysiakini's co-founder avoided jail time
|
| IMHO a lot of sites and apps should just remove chat/comment
| functionality and only allow emoji reactions.
| lerietaylor wrote:
| I think people forget that you don't need an app on the app on an
| app store to use it. The app is out there already, just give it
| to people. The app store simply gets rid of the "bad boy
| message".
|
| Stop complaining and find a way around it.
| poisonborz wrote:
| Watch the amount of these posts rise steeply in the future. Mass
| moderation is a Don Quixote fight, and in addition to their own
| products, big platforms increasingly force these policies on
| everything available in their app stores.
|
| There was a great thread on moderation just now:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26458826
| chromanoid wrote:
| It is probably a reaction to the pressure platforms (IMO to
| some extent rightfully) receive from regulators. Kicking
| downwards... but platforms especially app stores will probably
| be forced to do this anyway in the middle-term future - be it
| social pressure or regulatory enforcements.
| Dissley wrote:
| After reading this, I think Signal is also violating this policy.
| I was not able to find a way to report messages or users. In
| comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and the "most
| recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation.
|
| I think it is kind of strange that even a private messenger needs
| to implement a report system for messages.
| andreynering wrote:
| > In comparison on WhatsApp I can report a user or group and
| the "most recent messages" will be forwarded to moderation.
|
| Really? So if a random person decide to report me, plain text
| uncrypted messages will be sent to WhatsApp?
|
| Even if this does not happen regularly, this means that
| WhatsApp have means to read my messages, which is scary enough.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| No. It means the person making the report has the ability to
| read the message. Of course they do, otherwise it would be
| completely useless. You can't stop the recipient from doing
| something you don't want with the message you send them.
| Dissley wrote:
| I dont think this confirms that WhatsApp can ready our
| messages. In theory it could be implemented as a simple
| message forward, just as any message can be forwarded in
| Whatsapp.
| tjpnz wrote:
| This troubles me enough to start considering webviews again for
| my next project.
| devtul wrote:
| How long until we have to validate our code against a list of
| banned terms, like "master" or any new truly egregiously
| offensive terms of the day, before we are able to host our code
| or binaries on a third-party service?
| rendall wrote:
| The app has been restored
| https://twitter.com/EskomSePush/status/1371423310878183426?s...
| IshKebab wrote:
| Kind of ironic that their own mod tool apparently uses bans as
| the first step!
| fakeyguy wrote:
| Google doesn't understand customer service. They really don't.
| When speaking to customers, I ask them what is the biggest issue
| with using a google product.They will most likely say - reaching
| a human being.
|
| PS: I work for a competitor of one of google's products.
| [deleted]
| panpanna wrote:
| Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not depend
| on anything controlled by Google.
|
| Edit: Despite all their shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing
| android phone makers join force and create an independent app
| store.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is why we need anti-trust action when it comes to mobile
| app distribution. Google and Apple have abused their duopoly in
| this market for over a decade, now.
| anoncow wrote:
| The same is true for Facebook. My website and ad accounts were
| banned one day without a reason. They said it did not meet
| community standards. There has been no recourse since 2 years.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| I once tried to advertise on facebook. I was editing my ad,
| and when I was trying upload an image or something, it went
| into some sort of infinite loop of trying to reload the page.
| Then, seconds later, it was banned, taking down my business
| page and my personal account as well. Still down after two
| years and going through their "appeals" process, which
| involves trying to log in with my old password, saying it was
| a mistake, and nothing ever happening.
| anoncow wrote:
| There is no appeals process unfortunately. For the past 2
| years I have been asking for an update regularly and the
| only response I get is an automated response saying that
| they have checked my ad account and there is nothing they
| can do about it.
|
| My website is still blocked by Facebook's sharing debugger
| and my ad accounts with balance in them have been blocked
| without a reason given.
| astrange wrote:
| You could sue them in small claims court.
| Can_Not wrote:
| I'm completely in favor of everyone suing facebook for
| literally any reason, but to be clear, what would the
| legal standing/basis be for this small claims court?
| astrange wrote:
| The balance in their ad account belongs to them, not to
| Facebook.
|
| Beyond that, the point is just to make them notice you,
| so anything might be good enough. Reporting to a
| regulator like the CFPB can also be effective if the case
| looks financey - I got my PayPal account back recently
| that way after they didn't like how I typed in a tracking
| number and banned me for life.
| toastal wrote:
| I got banned from Gumtree for a similar system. I was using
| a script blocker, uMatrix (but have since stopped because
| of the hassle), and the site wasn't coded to handle
| something with reCAPTCHAs not loading and the error
| messages were useless. Support said it's an automated
| system and for contacting them about the ban, they blocked
| my email as well.
| Joeri wrote:
| You do have a recourse, same as with any other business: you
| can always take them to court.
| adamcstephens wrote:
| Unless they force binding arbitration in their terms. This
| is quite common and precludes you from going to court.
| p_l wrote:
| Which is why such terms should be illegal.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yup. Binding arbitration clauses should be taken out with
| a RKEW as nuke from orbit means you're way too close.
|
| // RKEW - Relativistic kinetic energy weapon
| arkitaip wrote:
| Repeating this same line is just harmful noise at this point.
| Rather, we should - legally - demand more from tech utility
| platforms like Google, Facebook or Apple.
| kempbellt wrote:
| > Repeating this same line is just harmful noise
|
| More like a strong disclaimer worth repeating for newcomers
| in the space.
|
| These stories have come up several times over the years on HN
| and it is worth reiterating:
|
| It is _very_ risky if your product /company relies solely on
| another company's success and openness to you - especially if
| that company is not contractually obligated to continue
| providing you service.
| xwdv wrote:
| > Daily reminder that your business/project/hobby should not
| depend on anything controlled by Google.
|
| Note that this doesn't mean don't participate on platforms
| controlled by Google, it just means diversify your business so
| you have multiple income streams rather than just putting all
| your eggs in one App Store basket. Apps should really just be a
| client facing portal tied in to a whole ecosystem of solutions
| you provide.
| swebs wrote:
| There's already F-Droid and the Amazon App store.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| f-droid doesn't have payments, Amazon is yet another faceless
| mega-corp that has had its fair share of sellers accusing
| them of various shady things.
|
| Creating a Play Store alternative is _hard_ for many reasons:
|
| 1) finance: the more countries you operate in, the messier it
| becomes. International taxes are one _hard_ mess, KYC /AML
| regulations differ between countries, and to top it off there
| is the whole "international sanctions" issue especially
| regarding Iran (where it's fine and explicitly encouraged by
| the EU to do business with Iran, but any entity that has US
| exposure exposes themselves to liability in the US for
| violations).
|
| 2) vetting of apps against a constant onslaught of spam,
| malware, copyright violations: f-droid has it _a bit_ easier
| since they require all apps be open source, but a commercial,
| widely used alternative will have to run static analysis,
| dynamic analysis (to catch runtime exploit attempts) and
| manual testing. All of this is expensive and requires expert
| knowledge of Android as well as IT security.
|
| 3) Implementation and hosting: an app store worth its name
| has a _lot_ of binary assets to distribute to users (and
| again, you have to avoid getting into trouble with people
| abusing your service to spread illegal content, because there
| _will_ be such cases rather sooner than later), the store
| itself has to be implemented, regularly adapted to account
| for changes in the Android core, you _definitely_ want a
| focus on security to avoid some hacker distributing malware
| to all your users with a push...
|
| 4) Customer and developer support: it's a well-known meme
| that FB/Amazon/Twitter/Google are almost impossible to reach
| for ordinary people without raising a shitstorm on Hacker
| News or a well-funded lawyer team... but the key thing is,
| support is expensive to run.
| ketzu wrote:
| The hardest part is getting any traction with it.
|
| Developers have no incentive to go the extra mile to
| publish on your store, because there are no users and it is
| extra work.
|
| Users have no incentive to install your store, because
| there is barely anything on it.
|
| OEMs have no incentive to preinstall your store, because
| you don't have any content (which devalues their product)
| and they don't gain anything from it. If they are willing
| to roll their own store, they at least rake in all the
| profit from it.
| martin_a wrote:
| > f-droid doesn't have payments
|
| I'm just a normal F-Droid user, but couldn't you build In-
| App purchases or link accounts to your website?
|
| So, register for a paid account on mygreatapp.com and use
| the login details in your app?
|
| I think that's what Google and Apple specifically DON'T
| WANT for financial reasons, but how about F-Droid?
| neurostimulant wrote:
| Doesn't f-droid require all app submitted there to be
| open source? Kinda hard to implement in-app payment while
| keeping your app open.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Unfortunately, that's _hard_.
|
| Developers like in-app payment methods because all they
| have to do is integrate an SDK for payment, and then they
| get a monthly payment on their bank account and a bill
| for accounting, that's it.
|
| If you want to handle payments yourself, you'll have to:
|
| 1) implement user management to deal with storing what
| stuff a user has purchased, with all the GDPR and
| customer support (forgotten passwords, hacked accounts,
| lost MFA creds) headache that comes from that
|
| 2) find a payment processor that operates in all your
| target countries (no, Stripe and Paypal alone won't cut
| it), and integrate these (and hope they don't run into
| the _same_ issue with Paypal, who are known for deciding
| on a whim to withhold funds)
|
| 3) Issue individual bills to customers, account for stuff
| like cross-border VAT, insanities like county/city sales
| taxes, deal with refund laws
|
| 4) deal with fraud attempts, angry parents, ...
|
| 5) Re-implement recurring payment schemes if your
| business model wants these
|
| In the end, app stores (and ad SDKs) are a matter of
| convenience. Big shops like Epic, Spotify, Netflix can
| get away with running lots of this infrastructure on
| their own, but 99% of small devs don't have the time,
| knowledge and legal requirements to deal with that.
| melomal wrote:
| Yeah, SEO has become hell hole in the last 6 months. Crippled
| businesses across the board from what I've seen and heard on
| the grape vine.
|
| After 8 years of SEO expertise I honestly can say that there's
| nothing about SEO these days that makes sense, pages are not
| being indexed for weeks at a time, spam/crap at the top result.
| Throw in the endless (and ambiguous) requirements to adhere to
| the mighty G's requirements.
| sunshineforever wrote:
| There _are_ independent app stores.
|
| The problem with the Parler situation is more that their
| average user is too incompetent and inexperienced with
| computers to understand how to download something that isn't
| literally laid out in front of them.
|
| I refuse to use Google Play or create a google account so I use
| The Aurora Store which replaces the Google Play Store.
|
| If I want to download some independent apps I head to F droid
| store or Aptoide.
|
| There are even more independent and alternative app stores, but
| these are the ones I use.
|
| Oh, and don't forget about github and app downloads directly
| from the web.
|
| F droid allows you to install without Google play.
| Blikkentrekker wrote:
| > _Daily reminder that your business /project/hobby should not
| depend on anything controlled by Google._
|
| So said by the ideologist, not by the businessman.
|
| It is an unavoidable reality in many cases, for those who wish
| to remain afloat.
| yunohn wrote:
| >> android phone makers join force and create an independent
| app store
|
| And why wouldn't this App Store have any takedown policies? Or
| have to follow the same kind of legal restrictions? In the
| discussed example, this wasn't even automated; an employee
| manually reviewed and chose to ban their app.
| bawolff wrote:
| That's unrealistic if your target is android phones.
|
| You can wax poetic about the idea of an independent app store
| all you want, it doesn't change the facts on the ground in the
| current moment.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Or you can just make a web app. Unless you are doing games or
| anything requiring lower-level hardware access, like a
| bluetooth scanner or something.
| sneak wrote:
| Webapps don't show up on the home screen, can't be targets
| of share pane actions, can't access contacts, can't send
| push notifications.
| GormanFletcher wrote:
| The current state of webapps on Android has made good
| progress on these issues:
|
| Supported on all major Android browsers:
|
| - Progressive Web Apps can be added to your home screen -
| Web Push lets web apps receive push notifications
| (Brave's implementation is broken, but they try to
| support the feature)
|
| Experimental APIs supported by Chrome for Android:
|
| - Web Share Target API, which lets homescreen'd web apps
| receive shares from other apps (the share pane makes no
| distinction between sharing to a web app or a native app)
| - Contacts APIs to read the user's contacts list
|
| I think PWA's competitiveness will get a lot better once
| other browsers adopt the Web Share Target (or something
| like it), but I'm skeptical that they'll really take off
| as long as Apple continues hold off on implementing
| features that would make PWAs competitive with native
| apps.
| bawolff wrote:
| You mean that thing which google controls 90% of the
| rendering engines for? [Yes, they have much less power, but
| its not exactly independence either]
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Let's not go into hypotheticals about what might happen
| if google started... what, inserting spyware, basically,
| into their own open source browser engine?
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Chrome and even Firefox have already begun political
| policing of their browsers
| (https://reclaimthenet.org/google-chrome-web-store-bans-
| disse...). The next step seems like it'll be forced
| curation of the web or blocking of IP addresses, since
| they're already knocking on that door.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| They banned a sleazy-looking extension from their
| extension stores. That's a far cry from "forced curation
| of the web or blocking of IP addresses". And, if that
| happens? Someone will just fork the browser.
| bawolff wrote:
| The hypothetical is that they remove support for part of
| a web standard and screw over your app.
|
| Which they certainly have done in the past
| (albeit,usually for really good reason. Google is a bit
| in a damned if you do damned if you dont position)
| arkitaip wrote:
| Why stop there? Web apps can trivially be taken down if
| your domain registrar, hosting provider, datacenter partner
| or payment solution decides to kick you out.
| nguyenkien wrote:
| There many hosting provider, datacenter, payment gatway
| to choose from. But just 2 appstore to use (technically
| android can have as many as you want, but how many pp use
| 3rd store right now?)
| em-bee wrote:
| compare to china where google is blocked, which as a
| result has dozens of competing appstores. each phone
| brand has their own, and then some.
|
| i do believe that if google didn't have an appstore that
| it forces android licensees to use, then we would have a
| similar variety of appstores world wide.
| derekp7 wrote:
| The problem I have with third party app stores is you
| have to open up permissions to install any third-party
| app -- you can't just say "Trust apps from the following
| app stores" (at least that I've found, although it has
| been a while since the last time I looked into it).
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| You have alternatives for those things though, in other
| countries if necessary. Ok, ok, accepting payments is
| hard -- if you're getting booted from your processors
| because, say, you're in a controversial industry, you
| might have to get creative (look at the US cannabis
| industry for such creativity).
| p49k wrote:
| Users, for the most part, don't want web apps and won't use
| them. It's an unrealistic stance.
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Actually, users, for the most part, don't want to install
| apps.
| p49k wrote:
| Maybe HN users, but an increasingly overwhelming
| percentage of the general population prefers to download
| an app to do something instead of using a mobile website.
| Guidii wrote:
| Do you have a source for that?
| wheresmycraisin wrote:
| Various industry surveys, like the one from comscore in
| 2019 suggest otherwise. IIRC it found that most American
| phone owners install only 1-2 new apps per year. I think
| they would've gone to more new websites than that.
| p49k wrote:
| That study doesn't imply what you suggest. Yes, most
| Americans install 1-2 apps per year: Facebook, Instagram
| and similar, and that's all they ever use. That segment
| of the population doesn't use the mobile web either; they
| spend all of their time in 1-2 walled gardens and you're
| not going to reach them with an app or website.
| mhuffman wrote:
| You seem to know what you are talking about, but from my
| personal experience this does not see correct. To me, it
| seems that it used to be that way, but now people only
| download apps for very specific purposes.
|
| Do you have pointers to data on this subject? I am very
| interested in this subject!
| derekp7 wrote:
| Couldn't you create a web-first app, then have the "app"
| that appears in the app just install a launcher icon that
| launches a browser window pointing to your website? This
| method (PWA?) I believe also lets you launch the browser
| without the browser control bar at the top (so it appears
| as a local app).
|
| The best part of this is even if your app gets banned
| from the app store, it is still accessible to anyone that
| wants to bookmark your URL, and I believe that users can
| also install the local PWA icon without having to go
| through an app store (I may be wrong about that, just
| starting to learn about PWAs and what is currently
| possible, and what is coming up).
| A12-B wrote:
| I guess all business/project/hobby websites should shut down
| then? Your website won't get very far at all when most people
| rely on google's search results, browser, and email service.
| toastal wrote:
| It won't solve these issues with gatekeepers fundamentally and
| doesn't work for all cases, but embracing PWAs means anyone can
| click the 'install' button for your application and side step
| some of this nonsense while getting a fairly robust feature set.
| orborde wrote:
| What is a PWA?
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Progressive web apps - i.e. web apps
| thiscatis wrote:
| Our app recently got banned a full week before being reinstated
| because of a non-published outdated .apk in an alpha test track
| that was not used.
|
| To be fair, we cleaned up our artefact management but still.
| Google is evil.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| A lot of crying from the dev in these tweets, but has he
| considered that Google has a valid point? A button which appears
| to "report user" but really "reports content" is a big no-no in
| 2021, where being able to report user content is very important
| in a legal sense. It just feels like immature whining to me.
| hermanmx wrote:
| What type of system would allow you report the user without the
| context? Banning users with consistent bad behaviour is much
| better for content quality than just removing content.
| okamiueru wrote:
| I find this to be a rather strange take. Shouldn't this have
| been a feedback from Google to the developers, followed up by a
| swift change to conform, and everyone is happy?
|
| The main issue here is lack of communication, and automated
| removals with little recourse from developers?
|
| Complaining about this process does not seem like "immature
| whining" to me.
| enlyth wrote:
| Why not give them some notice to fix it rather than just
| outright ban it on a Saturday? I'm surprised how many people on
| HN defend these hostile big corporation practices
| veeti wrote:
| Because it would never happen to them, they are smart enough
| to name their report button however our corporate overlords
| want it.
| WolfRazu wrote:
| I don't agree this is immature, he definitely has a point that
| Google should consider giving even a day's leeway in cases like
| this. That being said, I may be in the minority here, but I
| wouldn't expect a button that's labeled "report user" to report
| the content of the message, only the user profile for things
| like an abusive name, fake profile etc.
| jboogie77 wrote:
| Lol you must be trolling
| ratww wrote:
| The point is not whether Google has or not a point regarding
| UX, but more about banning the app and giving extra work to the
| team during a weekend.
|
| This is the kinda thing that could have been handled by "please
| submit another version with the correct text ASAP or we'll ban
| you in X days".
| pjc50 wrote:
| This feels like a _minor_ point even if it 's valid. This is
| like allowing the police to confiscate your car for a single
| defective bulb.
| creshal wrote:
| > has he considered that Google has a valid point?
|
| Then why did Google not flag this during one of their release
| reviews?
|
| Randomly banning already approved apps over minor wording
| problems without giving devs any time to react is insane.
| mitchdaily wrote:
| I too welcome the Google overlords deciding what functionality
| must be included in chat software owned by another company.
|
| What's next, banning European apps that allow people to sell
| cheese that is illegal in USA?
| panpanna wrote:
| Since when is google in charge of app functionality and UI??
| WolfRazu wrote:
| Since the first Android market guidelines? There's always
| been standards.
| panpanna wrote:
| No, the only rules that Google actually enforces are about
| security, scamming, trademark and stuff like that.
|
| While there are guidelines for making better apps, google
| is happy to publish anything.
| CivBase wrote:
| > We don't allow apps whose primary purpose is featuring or
| hosting objectionable [User Generated Content]. [...] your app
| currently only includes feature to flag inappropriate users.
| [...] the app must provide a user-friendly, in-app system for
| reporting objectionable UCG.
|
| It's _user_ generated content. How is reporting a user
| functionally different from reporting content?
|
| This makes me even more driven to switch to F-Droid for
| everything I possibly can. Hopefully we'll see a daily-drivable
| Linux smartphone before too long so I can ditch Android all
| together.
| bena wrote:
| The difference is the same between malice and ignorance.
|
| A user may just be wrong about something or not quite
| understand something. They're not trying to deliberately cause
| disruption, there's no need to fault the user. Remove the
| content, inform the user, move on.
|
| It's only a problem is a user continues to submit reported
| material.
| buu700 wrote:
| Agreed, that is an important distinction. As written, the
| button might discourage users from ever clicking it except in
| the most extreme cases or until after observing a pattern
| over time.
|
| Which isn't to say that Google's actions are at all justified
| here. This kind of thing makes me extremely wary of
| continuing to do business with them.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yup. I reported a message on a forum a couple of days ago.
| The user made a completely innocent mistake and there was
| nothing at all objectionable about the message--the problem
| is that he inadvertently doxxed himself.
|
| Elsewhere I am a moderator on a forum and I have seen exactly
| the same mistake, zapped it (the errant line, I left the rest
| of the message alone) on the spot and PMed the user--and been
| thanked for doing so.
| Farbklex wrote:
| This is my new favorite ban reason. "Reviewer glanced over
| functionality and decided that a required feature is probably not
| implemented although it is implemented. Ban immediately on a
| Saturday."
| zo1 wrote:
| For anyone unaware, the name of the app is a play on a swear
| word. "EskomSePush" is an intentional play on the phrase "Eskom
| Se Poes". Eskom being the power utility that provides electricity
| to South Africa, and has been woefully inadequate at doing so.
|
| See here for a meaning of the word Poes in Afrikaans.
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes#Afrikaans
|
| Wonder if Google is aware of that and has been getting lots of
| "reports" by genuine users that are offended by this? And this
| weird "technicality" is just a cover for why they really got
| banned/taken down.
|
| They have a one-hit wonder that they're trying to ride the wave
| on. So instead of sticking to the functionality they had
| (notifications/schedule/etc) which was perfect for users, they
| decided to add a "comments section" it seems for people to vent
| their frustrations. So no sympathy from me, despite Google being
| in the wrong here.
| igitur wrote:
| Herman Maritz, the author, has stated that they were
| overwhelmed with app users that complained to them when there
| were normal unplanned power outages or when Eskom deviated from
| the planned load shedding schedules. The chat feature was a way
| for user of close proximity to confirm a power outage with each
| other [1]. I wouldn't call it a 'comments section'.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/hermaritz/status/1371017176593928194
| TheCapeGreek wrote:
| So you dislike the devs because they added an optional feature?
|
| There's not much more to expand on the core functionality of
| notifications & schedule visibility.
| zo1 wrote:
| I didn't say I dislike them. I'm just saying they don't get
| sympathy from me regarding this "User Generated Content"
| feature that is now being targeted by Google. They should
| have known this feature would be a place for people to vent
| in ugly ways rather than to discuss or offer advice. And
| South Africa right now is a hotbed of civil discontent,
| especially between different racial/cultural groups.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| A more fundamental question is why it is Google's business at all
| to police apps or the content users generate on them. If someone
| finds content "objectionable", they should just move on, and not
| complain or try to shut down that content. What an utterly
| unnecessary fiasco. We need decentralized platforms and
| alternatives to the hegemony of Google, Apple, and other big tech
| companies.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| Imagine what it would be like if the section 230 protections
| were eliminated.
| IncRnd wrote:
| It's sad and ironic that Google used the exact same banning
| procedure they incorrecftly surmised the app used.
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