[HN Gopher] Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial 'buy now, ...
___________________________________________________________________
Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial 'buy now, pay later'
feature for Edge
Author : feross
Score : 190 points
Date : 2021-11-26 14:03 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (portswigger.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (portswigger.net)
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| "Interest-free"? Maybe in the technical sense, but a $4 fee on
| the minimum $35 purchase for a six week loan is a pretty honkin'
| high effective rate.
|
| If I didn't mess up the inputs, the calculator at
| https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/financial/apr-cal...
| says this is equivalent to a 163.2642% APR.
|
| Granted, the effective rate will be considerably less for larger
| purchases.
| notatoad wrote:
| i don't really understand the controversy here. Doesn't google
| add Google Pay into that same menu in chrome? why shouldn't
| microsoft offer their payment processor too?
|
| i'm not going to use "zip pay", but i'm also not going to use
| edge. this feels like an excuse for people to get angry.
| hbn wrote:
| It's not just a payment processor though, it's a third-party
| financing service from a company that myself and I assume most
| other people have never heard of, which as far as I can tell is
| built on a business model of tricking people into taking on
| more debt.
|
| I'd at least be a _little_ more forgiving if it was actually a
| Microsoft service, but the fact that it 's gonna be prompting
| random people to give up their financial and spending details
| to some random company makes it worse.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| This is what your MS browser has become? Basically a tracking
| device for "dealz", Which you can then pay for. It's basically
| become the dollar general of browsers. There were insecure
| browser plugins that did this 10-15 years ago. This is Laughable
| and sad.
| kburman wrote:
| you were supposed to destroy the sith not join them
| barbazoo wrote:
| At first I thought this was about Microsoft applying this payment
| option to purchases made through its (app) store. This applies to
| purchases made via Edge on any website. I wonder how they do
| that, will they fill the credit card details with a virtual CC
| generated on the fly by Zip?
| ziml77 wrote:
| That's what it seems like it has to do. It's part of the saved
| payment autofill selector.
| dmix wrote:
| From my brief research it looks it can generate single-use
| cards. But they also have retail partners with a more direct
| option.
|
| > As Zip Money has surged in popularity over the years,
| hundreds of retailers have signed up to join the fun. You can
| use this BNPL at a range of stores, like Amazon, Target, Harvey
| Norman, Just Jeans and more.
|
| > Zip Money also has a Shop Everywhere^ feature within their
| app. This allows you to shop at just about any retailer through
| a single-use card that is created at the time of purchase. All
| you need to do is add items to your cart and hit 'Pay with Zip'
| at the checkout!
|
| https://mozo.com.au/fintech/how-does-zipmoney-work-read-this...
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very accurate
| digital credit score, given just about everything goes thru their
| OS and browser.
|
| There's tons of such companies now - basically just scraping your
| Uber, Postmates, etc accounts and selling that to banks so people
| without credit history can have a start.
| turminal wrote:
| > MS is probably one of the best positioned to give very
| accurate digital credit score, given just about everything goes
| thru their OS and browser.
|
| I don't think so, lots of people do everything on their phones.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Especially people who would use afterpay. That said shopping
| on mobile still sucks.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I don't get how scraping info from Uber and whatnot helps with
| borrowing money. How are those signals about your risk to the
| bank?
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Shows that you work and earn income, apparently.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| It is a bad sign for a company when they start to focus on
| selling you finance stuff instead of focusing on what they
| nominally do. I remember how hard Sears pushed their credit card,
| for example.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Apple's credit card is huge success.
|
| Just about every big tech is doing the same since tech trust is
| so much higher than banks. Irony is - there's still always a
| bank behind.
| LadyCailin wrote:
| I doubt this is Microsoft's focus. I think this is some high
| level PM in the Edge division making this decision, and not
| getting any pushback from the right people. I doubt this is a
| sign of satya nadella's roadmap, for instance.
|
| Having said that, if this gets tons of negative media
| attention, and they still go ahead with it, then that is tacit
| approval, so.. we'll see.
| ttsalami wrote:
| I really believe right now that Microsoft's Windows/Edge teams
| are following the gaming industry's way of "Let ordinary people
| be outraged, the whales will feed us"
| busymom0 wrote:
| I recently got me a windows laptop for media consumption purposes
| (I still have my Mac mini for primary work). The very first thing
| I noticed was the constant push for edge browser everywhere. Even
| on the Lock Screen of Windows, I saw 3 places asking to try Edge
| browser.
|
| Had to go to settings and disable the ads for edge:
|
| https://www.groovypost.com/howto/turn-off-windows-10-lock-sc...
| tentacleuno wrote:
| Really goes to show that despite how good Edge looks on paper
| (and I am not denying the technical achievements are impressive),
| Microsoft are not listening to the people using this browser.
| Combined with the fact that a lot of people use it because it's
| practically forced on them[0][1][2][3], the whole model of this
| browser is egregious.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29251210
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28108409
|
| [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11961649
|
| [3]:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| [deleted]
| charles_f wrote:
| I'm on the fence on this one. I don't like how the feature is
| pushed "in your face" like that. And at the same time, I trust
| Microsoft more than the average nowadays company to be respectful
| of privacy and my data - albeit the average is low and this is a
| low standard to achieve.
|
| If you don't make money out of selling your customer's data, then
| you need to find ways to actually collect money from them. How
| it's been done is disgusting, but I think I'm aligned with the
| why.
| deadbunny wrote:
| Microsoft is still getting all your data.
| spiderice wrote:
| Exactly. I don't get how this is any better than what Google
| does. Google doesn't sell your data either. They themselves
| consume your data, and use it to push ads in your face and
| track you across the web.
|
| In other words, collecting insane amounts of data is also
| bad. Not just the selling of it.
| gianthockey495 wrote:
| In fact, personally (just my opinion) I wouldn't be
| surprised if Microsoft sold my data - extra cash for them.
| Google's main business is ads though - they WANT that data,
| and I wouldn't say they'd sell it.
| ziml77 wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised, but I'd also need some
| reasonably strong evidence to believe it.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > It allows any purchase between $35 and $1,000 made through
| Microsoft Edge to be split into four payments over a six-week
| period.
|
| > While the service is being promoted as 'interest-free', some
| were quick to point out that all transactions are subject to a
| "$4 flat fee".
|
| $4 in fees on $1000 over 6 weeks is an effective APR of around 4%
| - pretty good. $4 in fees on $35 over 6 weeks is an outrageous
| APR of around 123%. I'm guessing Zip is hoping most people are
| closer to the latter than the former. I wonder what kind of cut
| Microsoft is getting.
|
| [1] https://www.calculator.net/apr-
| calculator.html?cloanamount=3...
| winternett wrote:
| Now web browsers are gonna become credit cards attached to your
| browsing history... Great job guys! :|
|
| Ugh, who ever would have thought 2021 would have come to this.
| cutler wrote:
| This is M$ we're talking about. Are you really surprised?
| cyanydeez wrote:
| anyone paying attention.?
| behnamoh wrote:
| >> Now web browsers are gonna become credit cards attached to
| your browsing history... Great job guys! :|
|
| The dark humor is that some of the developers responsible for
| today's horrible web experience are here on HN...
| ineedasername wrote:
| _Ugh, who ever would have thought 2021 would have come to
| this._
|
| 1980's cyberpunk writers
| ourmandave wrote:
| Damn, even the Payday Loan and Rent-to-Own guys are taking
| notes.
| scottcodie wrote:
| The interest on $35 is only $4 since it is a flat rate not a
| reoccurring rate.
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| Right. It's a fixed term loan. Not revolving credit. These 2
| loans are mathematically equivalent:
|
| $35 at 0% APR, $4 fees, 6 weeks fixed term
|
| $35 at 123% APR, $0 fees, 6 weeks fixed term
|
| You could argue the high APR loan is worse because interest
| will be compounding if you miss your payments. But I'm
| guessing the Zip loan also has late payment fees.
| yesplorer wrote:
| Why does anyone need a payment plan for a $35 item though?
| metaltyphoon wrote:
| As crazy as it seems, in Brazil, payment plans are accepted
| everywhere. You can literally buy gas , groceries, medicines
| or whatever on your credit card and they will split make
| those installments for you. Maybe this market exist outside
| of the US?
| SilasX wrote:
| Well, any time you buy with a credit card, you're
| effectively doing the same thing.
|
| I remember when they were rolling out credit cards in the
| US as a common payment method (late 90s)[1], and so for the
| first time you could put your McDonald's meal on a credit
| card, comedians were joking that it felt like you were
| saying you couldn't afford it all at once.
|
| Which is not too far off from the reaction here.
|
| [1] and to clarify, yes credit cards were a thing long
| before that but they were mainly accepted at department
| stores and for big ticket purchases, not fast food.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| How do late fees work on this product in Brazil? Does this
| enable usury rates when late fees occur?
|
| https://www.profgalloway.com/red-friday/
| rescbr wrote:
| The whole purchase amount plus interest is taken from the
| credit card limit and every month you are charged for
| those installments.
|
| If you don't pay in full your statement, you pay regular
| Brazilian credit card interest rates (i.e. very high) on
| top of the BNPL interest rates.
|
| Some stores that have high cash flow may opt to not
| explicitly charge interest, opting to discount the price
| if you pay in full or charging the same price no matter
| whether paying in full or in 12 installments.
|
| It's important to note that the Brazilian BNPL scheme is
| enabled by the credit card acquirers, so there's a high
| degree of integration.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| Colombia too. It was weird as hell when Starbucks kept
| asking me how many installment I want to pay for MY CUP OF
| COFFEE in.
| fulafel wrote:
| It's a months income for a huge number of poor people.
| thrower123 wrote:
| They're offering payment plans on Dominos pizza now...
| dmurray wrote:
| People put $35 items on their credit cards all the time, and
| don't always pay off their balance monthly.
| smt88 wrote:
| Most people in the US live paycheck to paycheck. High-
| interest, short-term loans on small principals to the working
| class have been around for a long time.
| addicted wrote:
| Because they promote it as a $9 purchase, less than the price
| of 2 cups of coffee!!!
|
| And most people are far too financially illiterate to
| understand what that means.
|
| An APR of 23% for $50 sounds like I will have to pay $12.
|
| A $4 flat fee is so much CHEAPER!
|
| Nevermind that a credit card means I can pay back in 3 weeks
| minimum in the US, without paying any interest, and further,
| a $4 flat fee on $50 over 6 weeks is an APR that's over
| 60-70%, if not a lot more.
| the_snooze wrote:
| Because it hides the true price of things. It makes it easier
| to consume blindly with no regard to the actual cost.
| winternett wrote:
| It also allows them to more deeply tie your buying habits
| to your browsing history and to monitor you to figure out
| how to manipulate you towards spending more towards their
| owned and affiliated interests, while also making interest
| on your purchases. Diabolical.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I would applaud the convenience, but the terms are not nearly
| as useful as other services. If I can spread a purchase over
| four months, that's really useful. Affirm has been good to me
| this year. ...But what is even the point when you bill twice as
| often as most people get paychecks?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > what is even the point when you bill twice as often as most
| people get paychecks?
|
| I'm seeing some employers here offering "next day pay" i.e.
| you get paid today for the hours you worked yesterday. IDK
| but could also imagine that many "gig" jobs work that way,
| i.e. do Uber drivers get their pay immediately with each ride
| provided, or two weeks later?
|
| Wonder if that model will soon be more common?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| So on further thought, four payments over six weeks,
| assuming an immediate initial payment, means it bills every
| two weeks, or every standard paycheck. So I guess it's
| mostly fine...
|
| But Affirm still defaults to spreading over four months,
| usually interest free for the retailers they partner with,
| and ends up a far superior deal.
| tzs wrote:
| It is interesting to compare to using a credit card.
|
| The net tells me that the average credit card in the US has an
| APR of around 16%. Credit cards typically charge no interest
| for a month if you pay your balance in full that month. If you
| don't pay in full they charge interest based on your average
| daily balance during the month and the length of the month.
|
| If you were to pay with your credit card and then make 4
| payments toward your credit card balance on the same schedule
| that you would have made Zip payments, I get that Zip beats the
| card if the purchase is over $487 _and_ occurs at the start of
| your credit card billing cycle. It the purchase occurs in the
| middle of the cycle it needs to be over $811 for Zip to be
| cheaper. (This is assuming that in the month of the 4th payment
| you pay of the card balance completely).
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| In the US there usually is no interest if you pay on time.
|
| You can have perfect credit, but if your balance starts to
| get up there, credit cards can up their credit APR up to 29%.
| (Don't quote me on 29%, but it up there.)
|
| So credit cards are great if you pay in full each month.
|
| But when you actually need that cc money they tell you to
| spend, the consumer has very few rights. They can raise your
| rate of annual interest, and they do. I don't think there's a
| cc out there that doesn't have a mandatory mediation clause
| either.
|
| CC are bankrupt-able, even if you fib on your annual income.
| Don't fib. I believe the CC have more access these days to
| your finances. I once asked a Bankruptcy attorney about lying
| on the annual income. (People lie to get better rates.) He
| said, everyone lies on those forms. When a CC accepts you,
| they are basically accepting you on your Credit Rating. These
| is case law out there on this matter.
| cutler wrote:
| I don't know why they why they didn't go all-in and cut a deal
| with XVideos. Click a button, pay your fee and your window tiles
| with everything your ** desires.
| NazakiAid wrote:
| Make it hard for others to use other browsers, then push them in
| to getting in to buying things they cannot afford. Very unethical
| and I hope there are repercussions for all this horrible
| behavior.
| firebaze wrote:
| I relate to the line of thought this is like spam mail: they
| like to do obvious errors, because it filters people who'd
| disturb their money-farming scheme by asking questions.
| prohobo wrote:
| Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, y'know? I'd
| like to believe that people will stop using Windows now, but I
| think at best they might just lose some market share over the
| next 5 years.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| I, too, have been watching Succession
| bearcobra wrote:
| I usually use the Canary build, and I'm a little confused based
| on the Insider blog post on how this works. It doesn't seem to
| just offer Zip as an option on any store based on my expeirence
| doing some Black Friday shopping today. If all it's doing is
| storing your credentails to an alternative payment system like it
| already allows you to store your credit card and prefilling it
| for retailers that offer this as an option, I can see the value
| of the feature. It'd be nice if they could do the same with
| PayPal or other services. But if the feature is now adding the
| option to use this service on websites that don't already offer
| Zip, I agree that is something that should not be enabled by
| default for all installs.
| butz wrote:
| This is why we need an independent web browser with only basic
| set of features that are enough for average user.
| aliswe wrote:
| you need proprietary code to playback bought/rented movies from
| eg. Youtube though
| krapp wrote:
| The average user doesn't want a web browser with only basic
| features, they want all of the web to work, all of the time
| (excepting maybe ads.)
| sithlord wrote:
| Not suprising, I have to assume it was microsoft who pushed 343
| to push out the giant dark pattern that is Halo Infinate.
| aliswe wrote:
| who, what?
| Shadonototra wrote:
| They are doing the exact same mistakes Mozilla did (and still is
| doing) with firefox..
| deergomoo wrote:
| I cannot stand how everything with internet access is just
| becoming a vehicle to shove ads down everyone's throat. This web
| browser wants to sell me credit deals. My expensive TV has banner
| ads in the menus (well, it did until I blocked about two dozen
| domains). An increasing amount of apps are sending "offers" I
| never requested via push notifications on my phone.
|
| My belongings are not a fucking corporate billboard.
| behnamoh wrote:
| I typically respect Apple products, but they also shove ads in
| the settings app...
| macintux wrote:
| I have seen a reminder once about time running out to buy an
| AppleCare warranty, which I appreciated. What other ads have
| you seen in Settings?
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Maintaining browsers has become a significant undertaking, so
| complex that only well-funded corporate interests can afford to
| keep one patched and up-to-date with the latest web standards.
| It surpassed operating system complexity. It surpassed pretty
| much everything else too.
|
| So we can forget about it ever being truly "free" (and free
| from ads) unless we simplify the web somehow. I also don't
| think we're going to go back in time and start cutting features
| out of browsers. So that isn't going to happen.
|
| What might work is a browser funded by massive numbers of small
| user donations. That's the Firefox model. It kinda works? But
| Firefox still pushes things on their users and defaults to
| Google Search.
|
| Another option is to pay for a browser. But there isn't enough
| interest in a paid browser to get one off the ground.
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| But what can we do? Ads provide employment for tens of millions
| of people and fund literally billions of hours of content
| watched a year. Even if you agree most is trash, it's also
| allowed some really high quality stuff to flourish while being
| able to stay relatively independent.
|
| It's strongly tied to economic growth, and thus everybody's
| pensions are tied up in the success of advertising. It seems
| illogical it makes such an obscene amount of money, but
| collectively the advertising industry is bigger than even oil &
| gas.
|
| Now I don't exactly enjoy ads, I accept a few, but every time
| they're implemented the pressures of the market just increase
| it over and over until it ruins the base product, like a
| cancer.
|
| What's the alternative?
|
| Consumers don't have enough money to pay for dozens and dozens
| of subscriptions. The ads industry is effectively a tax on
| every other industry, and thus makes more money than consumers
| would ever spend on content. I'm open to ban advertising
| entirely but that also seems like an opposite extreme and
| counterproductive.
| intsunny wrote:
| This article is click-bait bullshit.
|
| The title says "Microsoft pushes ahead with controversial 'buy
| now, pay later' feature for Edge browser"
|
| But the text says: "Microsoft has not responded to repeated
| requests for comment. Given the widespread condemnation of the
| feature, it may be reconsidering a full rollout - its deal with
| Zip permitting."
|
| There is zero substance in this article.
|
| And I say the above as a 90's Linux die-hard who loves to bash
| MSFT.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| >It may be reconsidering a full rollout This is speculation on
| the articles behalf, so for all intents and purposes until it
| is officially nixed, it IS going forward. So you basically have
| said the article is true and you are just being a little
| hostile no? Do you work on this browser?
| [deleted]
| wildrhythms wrote:
| What part of 'pushes ahead' is click-bait? Microsoft announced
| the feature, backlash ensued, and despite the backlash there
| has been no intention of halting the feature. Is that not
| 'pushing ahead'?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| "Pushing ahead" implies they said something later that
| ignored the backlash. Such as another announcement. If
| they're thinking about what to do now, they're not "pushing
| ahead". Just reconsidering.
|
| We won't know what they're actually doing until the next
| announcement.
| hvgk wrote:
| I'd be really pissed about this if they hadn't pissed me off for
| the last decade and I hadn't eviscerated every trace of Microsoft
| from my existence already. Thus I shall merely respond with
| _"meh"_ and _"I thought edge was only used to download Chrome"_
| mavhc wrote:
| In order to save you a step of using Edge to download Chrome we
| downloaded Chrome first and renamed it Edge.
|
| Imagine if they never told anyone about this and just released
| it.
|
| "Microsoft was apparently hacked today and someone managed to
| install crapware into the default install of Edge. Crapware,
| mostly known to be installed by dodgy software installers when
| you forget to untick something, has been a problem for many
| decades, but this is the first time it's been installed by
| default in a Microsoft application (Unless you count Windows
| 10)"
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Slightly related but windows 11 is such a bad version that I'm
| going back to windows 10. The hotch potch of the old menus and
| the new menus are bizarre to say the least.
| tempfs wrote:
| My favorite new features of Windows 11 are the fact that my
| wireless adapter suddenly sucks and that it now takes me two
| clicks to get the full right click menu.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > that it now takes me two clicks to get the full right click
| menu.
|
| ...What? What did they do, put all the useful stuff in a
| submenu?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| That's exactly what they did:
| https://www.pcgamer.com/windows-11-context-menu-fix-right-
| cl...
|
| It's astounding that they would do this now, when monitor
| resolutions higher than 1080p are becoming increasingly
| common, rather than back in the Windows 98 800x600 CRT era.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> It's astounding that they would do this now, when
| monitor resolutions higher than 1080p are becoming
| increasingly common, rather than back in the Windows 98
| 800x600 CRT era._
|
| When you think like a developer/power user it astounding,
| but not when you think like some MS UX product manager
| who's chasing some promotion. They most likely justified
| to the higher-ups _" Hey look, the new consumers are more
| accustomed to mobile devices, which hide or simply don't
| have any advanced options at all. And mobile devices are
| selling like hot cakes, right? So if we try to emulate
| that mobile OS feeling by hiding away all the advanced
| options that confuse the average user, then consumers
| will buy those instead of Macs, right? Right?! "_
|
| They did the exact same shit with Windows 8 where they
| pushed a tablet UX on the desktop and consumers hated it
| so much, it entrenched Windows 7 as one of the longest
| running Windows versions of all time. They fixed some of
| the issues via Windows 8.1, and reverted back to the more
| sane classical desktop approach with Windows 10, since
| most of the consumers were sticking to Windows 7 or even
| XP.
|
| So I expect a Windows 11.1 to follow soon that will bring
| back some sanity following all the backlash. Or not.
| tomrod wrote:
| As an industry, we should encourage power use of core
| products. Power use is adaptive, competent usage.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Isn't that what linux and OSS is for? That's the industry
| you're probably thinking about, as Microsoft, Google and
| Apple have the obligation to their shareholders to make
| money which today translates in milking the consumer by
| keeping them uneducated and clueless about how computers
| work so they can lock you into their respective
| ecosystems where everything is so polished and Just
| Works(TM), so you don't need to think about the "hows"
| and the "whys" and where your data is going.
|
| _" Look! we just launched our new 2022 shiny that's so
| much better than your old shiny. Go buy it and forget
| that you could still use your old shiny if we wanted to,
| but we don't, because that's not profitable, so instead,
| you'll now pay us a yearly subscription fee from now on
| because in a couple of years you'll get no updates for
| your old shiny so just chuck it into the landfill
| already. Also, we'll collect your data as well, but don't
| worry, because we care so much about privacy, it's all
| encrypted with military grade encryption(TM). You don't
| get the encryption keys though, no, no, no, that's too
| complicated for your poor soul to manage, we'll keep
| those for you, but you don't need to worry about that
| consumer, trust us, we got your back, our products are
| like a part of your family, just look at the cool
| marketing ads of our new shiny, everyone looks so
| successful and happy, and if you buy our products you'll
| feel the same. At least until the dopamine hit wears
| off."_
|
| That's part of the recipe that makes multi trillion
| dollar companies, not educating users. IMO, just like
| sex-ed, our education system should teach kids basic tech
| literacy in schools from a young age, so they don't put
| their faith and their private data in the hands of for
| profit companies, because they don't know any better and
| just trust the corporate advertising.
|
| Also, IMO, we should regulate big-tech and targeted
| advertising the same way we regulated big-tobacco,
| otherwise, if we let everything up to "the free market",
| we'll get the tech equivalent of pregnant women being
| told smoking is good for their babies, presuming we
| haven't already reached that stage yet.
| tomrod wrote:
| I appreciate your perspective, and having thought about
| it for a few hours I find that I disagree. Windows,
| MacOS, Linux, etc. as operating systems are within the
| same domain of users; power user differentiation is
| currently a difference of preference, not of class or
| kind.
|
| For other technologies, defaulting to open and targeting
| power users (and encouraging reasonable onboard skilling)
| is how we target all other tools, such as vehicles, power
| tools, and so forth that are used with a craft.
| Tradesfolks know their tools, and their most important
| tools they know enough to modify to suit their needs.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| NGRhodes wrote:
| Meanwhile in the UK this week ...
|
| "The government agreed to regulate BNPL lenders after an
| independent review chaired by City expert Christopher Woolard,
| published in February, warned that the sector represented a
| "significant potential consumer harm"."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/nov/23/stella-creasy-...
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Microsoft finally made a browser which renders websites as
| expected, is up-to-date regarding security and features, and
| (most) people actually don't have the need to replace it with
| anything else.
|
| I will never understand why they NEED to ruin this. It's
| baffling.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| I do understand. Look at Firefox: they are barely hanging on.
| Oddskar wrote:
| Only because the Mozilla foundation spends their money doing
| all kinds of dumb things that no one wants.
| benjamir wrote:
| As long as economics 101 is: "Hello capitalism!" ... What do
| you expect?
| hiddencost wrote:
| Data
| [deleted]
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Because Microsoft's raison-d'etre is to extract as much money
| as possible from computer users. No matter how much they try to
| not be evil, no matter how many overtures they make to
| developers, it won't change the fact that Microsoft is
| basically just a hostile entity out there to extract as much
| money as possible from the computing scene.
| cutler wrote:
| And to think they now own Github and NPM. The Borg is truly
| upon us.
| sprkwd wrote:
| And linked in and minecraft.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I imagine some MBA saw a way they could augment the payment
| card feature to extract money, and bringing that to their
| manager is a good permanent gain for them (since they most
| likely won't have to answer to the PR team).
| lytedev wrote:
| Because in the long run you make money best by providing
| customers valuable services and/or products. If you're
| screwing over your customers in any way, that is
| counterproductive to that goal.
| thow-01187 wrote:
| Haven't the past past 10 years been a complete refutation
| of this belief? Money made by hype, fraud, market power
| abuse or regulatory arbitrage dwarfs profits made by
| providing value, no longer how long the time horizon.
| Especially since it's clear that the US establishment's
| policy is not to prosecute and punish white-collar crime
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Maybe that's true, but these kind of actions are
| Microsoft's MO. It's how they grew, it's what they'll
| forever do. I almost thought they had changed when they
| seemingly shifted to be friendlier when they were trying to
| attract developers to Azure and embracing Linux and OSS,
| but obviously not. MS just can't not be evil. Kind of like
| Oracle.
| cutler wrote:
| M$ "embracing" Linux was like The Wicked Witch Of The
| West embracing Dorothy considering how soon it followed
| their evil Linux patent racket and funding of SCO's
| baseless UNIX lawsuit. Beware The Borg, all you who are
| too young to remember M$'s glory days.
| ninth_ant wrote:
| Of course for-profit companies try to extract as much money
| as possible from their customers, that's the reason they
| exist.
|
| The issue is that once again Microsoft is abusing their
| monopoly power on the home PC market to make decisions that
| otherwise would be ignored. No one would download and install
| Edge and be force-fed ads for money lenders, except that
| Microsoft installs it by default and aggressively pushes
| windows users into it with frequent prompts and bogus
| security warnings.
|
| It's the bundling and abuse of their market power that is the
| issue, not their profit motive. In a well-regulated economy
| they would get fined and forced to change how they operate.
| tgv wrote:
| I do not agree that maximizing profit is necessary. A
| company needs to take care of our customers and employees,
| and only make enough profit to keep doing so. More is just
| unethical.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| They copied a browser which renders websites the same way as
| the browser they copied from. Value add, whether you like their
| choices or not, is arguably the only reason one would pick
| their browser over the browser they copied.
| tempfs wrote:
| It is a for profit company, the reason is always profit.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I'm honestly not sure how much profit a 2 trillion dollar
| company is supposed to generate from an interest free pay
| later browser bloatware feature
|
| Even if you're Scrooge McDuck that sounds not worth it
| ffhhj wrote:
| The goal is per team, Edge team must find new ways to
| generate profit, how much they make doesn't really matter,
| but the goal is to keep increasing this profit.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| What profit did legacy Edge bring them? Considering all
| the development efforts, I'd believe it was more of a
| money sink than anything else.
| slimsag wrote:
| As another said, the goal to increase revenue is per team.
| The Edge team must likely find proof for how they will
| drive revenue in the future.
|
| Suddenly you've got a full browser engineering team trying
| to figure out how to monetize a browser - tough sell. So
| they can't come up with anything, that's fine because a
| product manager is the owner of this task anyway. They
| propose a myriad of different ways to monetize Edge in the
| future:
|
| * A "Edge Pro" subscription $10/mo where you get ad-
| blocking and no tracking (we'll need to block third-parties
| from offering this)
|
| * A built in way to pay people online, we take a cut. Hey
| maybe we finance big purchases and that's a unique selling
| point?
|
| * Premium apps/websites, web page authors can give access
| only to users with an Edge subscription and in return they
| get a cut of the profits.
|
| They discuss these options as a team, and decide which one
| is least likely to cause backlash and is least difficult to
| "try out" and they land on what we're seeing here.
| meesterdude wrote:
| This is a pretty good breakdown of how it likely came to
| be, but leaves out the satanic rituals and incantations
| that also (seemingly) play a big part in how microsoft
| makes decisions.
| scj wrote:
| "The peripheral drivers team needs to increase it's
| revenue."
| chocolatkey wrote:
| That team doesn't need to, device manufacturers already
| do that by only making drivers for Windows for certain
| devices, increasing lock-in
| squarefoot wrote:
| There is zero proof that it will remain interest free
| forever; also their main goal here is to engage as much
| people as possible, so that each purchase click will
| generate profits indirectly through users profiling etc.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Of all the FAAMG out there, Microsoft arguably has the most
| diverse revenue streams, I don't see what's surprising with
| them going after another market (let alone payments). It's
| just another layer for monetization and doesn't prevent
| them pursuing their other business lines (it's arguably
| different teams anyway). Nothing's ever worth it if you
| take the approach of "It's already worth/earning 100x,
| adding 1x isn't worth the effort".
|
| P.s.: I don't mean to defend BNPL, IMO it is shark loaning
| disguised behind late fees. I forgot the exact number but
| when I did the (ballpark) math for Afterpay you were
| capping at like 30% in late fees within 3/4 months.
| slimsag wrote:
| > Of all the FAAMG out there
|
| Of all the MANGA* out there
|
| FTFY
| jaredsohn wrote:
| MAMAA
| Shared404 wrote:
| Not the commenter above, but I don't really want to
| support Facebook's attempt to dodge bad press with a name
| change.
|
| I'll stick with FAAMG.
| FredPret wrote:
| The winning play for them is to make genuinely the best
| browser, gain market share, and then start their
| shenanigans. Like Google did
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| What shenanigans do you think Google is pulling? There's
| nothing equivalent in Chrome...
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Google is an advertising company. That's what they make
| their money from. And they are the biggest internet
| advertising company.
|
| Everything they do is aimed at gathering more data for
| more lucrative ads.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| I'd rather be connected to contextual ads than have my OS
| vendor try to keep my entire digital life hostage for a
| ransom.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Extension manifest V3.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Care to explain why you think it's a bad thing? Seems
| like it's mostly deprecating old JS ways of doing things
| and introducing new JS features and a better security
| policy.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It's an underhanded way to limit blocking capabilities
| that they can sell as a benefit.
| coolso wrote:
| Most of Chrome's shenanigans happen on the backend, like
| with Google in general.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Nice non-answer.
| wooptoo wrote:
| Today's Google is a saint compared to the nineties
| Microsoft.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I don't know about that - 90s MS was a scumbag to any
| other company it could get under it but it generally
| didn't harm its users (other than of course being
| uncompetitive and limiting options) because its users
| were a form of customer (just not the enterprise level
| customers which were most important)
|
| Google harms other companies as well that it can get
| under its thumb, but also harms its users.
|
| In other words the only time I would have thought in the
| 90s how is MS going to harm me would be if I decided to
| start a company that would potentially compete with them,
| or would depend on standards they were likely to
| sabotage.
|
| Today if I decide to use a google service I have to to
| wonder - how is google going to harm me?
| adventured wrote:
| > Today's Google is a saint compared to the nineties
| Microsoft.
|
| Definitely not the case.
|
| See: rigging the advertising market in cahoots with
| Facebook (Jedi Blue).
|
| See: conspiring with other large tech companies to
| artificially limit salaries for tech workers.
|
| See: leveraging its search monopoly to gain additional
| monopoly or near-monopoly positions (YouTube, Chrome,
| Android), as well as using it to harm competitors (eg
| Yelp and many others).
|
| See: huge, repeat fines out of Europe for various abuses.
|
| What we already know is that they're at least as evil as
| 1990s Microsoft. What we don't yet know, is likely to yet
| put them over the top. The Feds have hardly even looked
| under Google's corporate hood as they did with Microsoft
| in the 1990s. This is merely the second or third inning
| of discovery of all the evil shit Google has likely done
| over the past two decades. Google's founders
| simultaneously ran away as fast as they could to get out
| in front of what was coming, because they know where the
| bodies are buried.
| Lammy wrote:
| > The Feds have hardly even looked under Google's
| corporate hood
|
| "Well of course I know him -- he's me"
| https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-
| in-ci...
| greyhat wrote:
| > While the service is being promoted as 'interest-free',
| some were quick to point out that all transactions are
| subject to a "$4 flat fee".
| hvgk wrote:
| It's not profit. It's monumentally stupid dick sucking promo
| hunting product managers. I've watched several products
| ruined by these people over the years. The engineers walk and
| they become the majority of opinion. Next thing you know your
| sleek well engineered product looks like a Mumbai train at
| rush hour.
|
| It's imperative you stop using a product when this happens so
| that the higher up stakeholders see the damage they do.
| FredPret wrote:
| But their thinking is flawed. The reason is of course profit,
| but the result will not be profit.
| derekjdanserl wrote:
| The ultimate result is never profit. https://wikipedia.org/
| wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to...
| globalise83 wrote:
| If you simply subtract some estimate of damage to their
| multi-billion dollar brand, it far outweighs any conceivable
| revenue from this creepy feature. It is not as if buy-now-
| pay-later is not already widely available on most merchant
| checkout pages. This will just be one option among many.
| cutler wrote:
| M$ never ceases to amaze regarding how low they'll go to make a
| dollar. A few years ago it was their infamous Linux patent racket
| and behid-the-scenes funding of SCO's UNIX lawsuit. Now they're
| loan sharking. I've also been reading recently about their
| botched attempt to limit the new hot code reloading feature of
| .Net 6 to Visual Studio as well as their proprietary debugger
| code which prevents .Net from ever going truly open source. Same
| old M$.
| muzani wrote:
| I don't understand the controversy. Google and Apple make lots of
| money from their app stores. MS offers loans at a $4 fee and
| everyone loses their mind. Would everyone be as hostile if say,
| Opera did the same thing?
| firebaze wrote:
| Suppose your fridge would offer to order from a fast-food
| "restaurant" near you everytime you get close to it.
|
| Sounds illogical, unexpected and puzzling?
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