It's a strategy to dismantle the Web, which had the "disadvantage" of being simultaneously free and a level playing field, and replacing it with a loose network of fiefdoms, each a walled garden (a term often used to describe Apple in its entirety).
Most of these apps are advertising delivery mechanisms masquerading as utilities. Another role they have is to prevent copying of content or links from one fiefdom to another. In doing that, they represent a retreat from the ideal of a public forum.
I think this idea works best with relatively young people who don't clearly understand what they're giving up when they download a proprietary app in order to read what should be a public document.
The old Web has many problems, but freedom of expression remains in the plus column.
Dismantling the Web isn't anybody's strategy (making money is), but in any case, it's a poor strategy nonetheless. One of the most important things I've learned is that all other things being equal, convenience always wins. A strategy that makes things less convenient for consumers is a losing strategy.
> Dismantling the Web isn't anybody's strategy ...
By "web" I mean the public forum that anyone can access with a standards-compliant browser. And yes, there is such a strategy, and making money is the underlying motive.
> A strategy that makes things less convenient for consumers is a losing strategy.
Yes, unless consumers have no choice. Consider the present cell phone system -- it's perfectly terrible, and consumers can't do anything about it. The reason? Each cell phone company sells you a different interface device and tells you what you can and cannot do with it, to the degree that they now can charge you with a felony if you jailbreak their phone:
My point is that a free, public forum has every advantage (as you say) but if a company can prevent such a free forum in the name of making money, they will.
>For those who may not have understood or thought to ask, “unlocking” is not the same as “jailbreaking.” In a nutshell, jailbreaking involves making it possible for a device to run code either from sources the manufacturer did not intend the device to be able to use or to run code the manufacturer did not intend it to be able to run (though most people talk about Apple IOS devices, Sony, for example, will note that other devices can also be “jailbroken”). Unlocking, however, involves making it possible for a device intended for use on one wireless network to be used on a different network – wireless devices sold by a particular wireless company are generally, but not always, sold programmed so that they can only use that company’s network.
Jailbreaking is still legal. Also
There are a couple of factors that will disrupt the Web architecture.
The Web has trained us to build dumb clients and centralize anything of value on the server, at a huge cost and never enough trust. We can safely predict today that light-weight protocols, mediated by the mobile OS (and its Platform) will directly challenge the Web architecture, precisely because we can leverage the platform trust model. That evolution is extremely profound.
For instance, apps running on your device can securely and privately share information without requiring a complex temporal integration involving a 3rd party service (such as Google AdSense). The information is produced and consumed on the device or the device of a related end-user. What happens on your device can now stay on your device.
Just to be clear, and to show how disruptive that architecture is, the primary key of your private data becomes your phone, not your identity. Merchants no longer need to identify you. They can’t care less about YOU, they just care to know some information about you. The problem with the Web Architecture was that the only way to do that was to associate PII to a primary key on a server and hence merchants needed to identify you to track your every move (and they shamelessly did).
The second factor is just as profound: the very open nature of the Web is driving scale over scope. The Web has successfully nurtured the largest Catalog, the largest Search engine, the largest Auction site, the largest Social Network, but I see this as a negative side effect of the Web architecture because it limits the scope of what people can do. In other words, the scope of what Amazon, Google or Facebook offer is limited by the scale (and hence the revenue) they can achieve.
I actually argue that a trust-based neutral Platform will support a more vibrant and diverse ecosystem than a truly open model because in essence a Web business couples the leve of trust it can achieve with the functionality it can deliver. The Platform decouples the trust from the functionality and it enables much smaller actors to deliver a lot more scenarios while relying on the trust establish by the Platform.
All US Carriers at least allow unlocking as long as you own the phone. Emphasis on own (paid off your contract so you are no longer "renting" it or you paid for it outright). That would include all GSM phones and all Global phones on CDMA based carriers (such as the Galaxy S3 or iPhone 5).
If I'm understanding you correctly, then you're essentially arguing that the CATB analogy applies to the infrastructure of the web. Would you say that something like Diaspora is something which uses the Bazaar approach?
Secondly, given your model of what you believe the future of trust looks like - what do I do if I lose my phone? How do I 'get back in' to the Platform if my primary key gets lost?
In my view, authentication requires a third-party - one which provides the 'yay or nay' that somebody is who they say they are. If you don't have that, then your relationship with any client is one which cannot be verified: it's the equivalent of asking for an ID card without checking that it's real.
So this is just splitting hairs between proximate and ultimate causes. We could say the the prime motivation is profit - a specialized case of making money. In order to turn a profit one must make more money than one spends. It is thought that by monetizing the content and sealing it off one can maximize one's revenue stream. The end result is dismantling the web.
Convenience does always seem to win. I suppose because people are lazy. Or short-sighted. It's hard to put in extra effort now for some saving down the road.
> Another role they have is to prevent copying of content or links from one fiefdom to another.
I have a hard time believing that considering the prevalence of the "share" button in apps.
There is certainly a "walled garden" problem on iOS, with all the jailbroken nonsense linked to it, but on Android (don't know about MS phones) I can run whatever I want. The app store is just curation, not limitating. Granted there are still some problems with rooting, but they seem to be disappearing from my view. Freedom of expression is still there.
>I think this idea works best with relatively young people who don't clearly understand what they're giving up when they download a proprietary app in order to read what should be a public document.
Could you cite an example where this is really true? I'm not trying to be facetious here, I'm just wondering what app locks out what would in another world be completely open info. The only thing I can think of is messangers, but that's more a practical thing than anything (again... access to phone APIs trump idealism).
>> Another role they have is to prevent copying of content or links from one fiefdom to another.
> I have a hard time believing that considering the prevalence of the "share" button in apps.
But a "share" button in a dedicated app isn't remotely a hyperlink. A hyperlink only tells the reader about the destination, but a "share" button also tells the recipient about the source.
>> I think this idea works best with relatively young people who don't clearly understand what they're giving up when they download a proprietary app in order to read what should be a public document.
> Could you cite an example where this is really true?
Sure -- paywalls are a classic example. As soon as we accept paywalls and read articles behind paywalls, we can't share content any more. These dedicated apps are like paywalls taken to the next level.
But young, inexperienced people often don't see the problem with paywalls when compared to a public forum. The same logic applies to these dedicated apps -- they make it harder to share information. Their existence only serves the interests of the companies that create them.
> I'm just wondering what app locks out what would in another world be completely open info.
A browser gives you access to all content. A dedicated app only gives you access to that fiefdom's content. So such an app is not open in the way that a browser is, and you're limited to that app's purview.
Consider a cell phone as an more extreme example. It's a way to take conversation and make it into a product. A cell phone is sort of like one of these dedicated apps, in the sense that you can't freely move between fiefdoms -- and if you try, you have to pay "roaming charges".
The global issue is the commoditization of information -- turning information into property, into a commodity. The idea is to take a public forum like the Web, privatize it, and sell it back to what are now captive information consumers.
The paywall is a good point. The current NYT model (pay after N articles, easy to circumvent) is a model I could live with in exchange to high-quality content. The problem is do I really want to pay for 5 different papers?
Great example. I used to think of paywalls a good thing (in exchange for less ad bullshit), but now it seems a bit dangerous.
It appears that part of the pricing strategy for online news is to charge so much that your subscribers won't even think of paying for another paper. I thought no one would pay these outrageous rates and the strategy would be DOA, but apparently it's actually been quite successful.
> Sure -- paywalls are a classic example. As soon as we accept paywalls and read articles behind paywalls, we can't share content any more. These dedicated apps are like paywalls taken to the next level.
> But young, inexperienced people often don't see the problem with paywalls when compared to a public forum. The same logic applies to these dedicated apps -- they make it harder to share information. Their existence only serves the interests of the companies that create them.
True, but I wasn't making a quantitative claim about behavior, only saying that it existed as a factor. And I have a self-referential problem with the source:
"With the purchase of a Premium Account figures, numbers, and downloads may be accessed."
>I have a hard time believing that considering the prevalence of the "share" button in apps.
In the OP's example this share button would just lead to a message of 'you need to download our app to view this material'
>There is certainly a "walled garden" problem on iOS, with all the jailbroken nonsense linked to it, but on Android (don't know about MS phones) I can run whatever I want. The app store is just curation, not limitating. Granted there are still some problems with rooting, but they seem to be disappearing from my view. Freedom of expression is still there.
AFAIK he wasn't talking about the OS being a walled garden, more that each app was. Not being able to share content between apps, combine the functionality of them, etc.
Being able to run whatever you want doesn't help if the content owners have locked it down to being only viewable in their app.
> but on Android (don't know about MS phones) I can run whatever I want.
Yeah, you need to install some other 'security app' that is essentially another rogue/thief to defend against any other burglar.
This has happened and is still happening in China where the Google Play is blocked and a number of 3rd party markets exist and thrive. Even a social network app would bother to remind you upgrading some other apps you have installed. Who knows who is stealing what?
I don't know if its intentional or not, but I've run into several apps where highlight and copy isn't implemented / enabled. That's pretty very frustrating. Sometimes I just want to take notes, or google something, not share whatever it is on facebook / twitter / snapchat.
Sorry, but I see way way way less ads in apps than on the web.
I'd say the web is stuck with the mindset that the only way to make money is by heavy advertising or selling you to the ads companies.
> Sorry, but I see way way way less ads in apps than on the web.
Yes, because these "walled-garden" apps are just being introduced, and they want to be on their best behavior for the moment. Sort of like a drug dealer, who gives the addict his first hit free.
Also, I think you meant to say "fewer ads", not "less ads":
Since language isn't science, and since dictionaries are only meant to describe how people use words, not tell people how to use words, that claim could be made about any grammar rule or word definition or spelling, with some degree of justice.
The counterargument is that clear communications is helped along by adopting common conventions for word usage.
And the linked article only points out that there are ambiguous cases where less or fewer are equally appropriate, not that the rule has no merit.
A lot of those tablet apps suck, because the priorities driving them aren't the readers. This means that they'll either lose in the long run, or adapt to serve reader's needs.
I see your point, but if this were true, then cell phone service (another walled garden of separate fiefdoms) would gradually get better instead of worse. But it's getting worse.
I don't think this is correct. It's far more difficult to compete as a cell phone service due to FCC regulations. It's a government granted mono/duopoly.
I expect to see cell service remain complete shit. I don't expect these per-website apps as they exist now to be widely used.
Spectrum ownership and broadcast power limitations. To operate as a wireless service provider at the scale that cell phone companies do, you need the FCCs explicit permission. The process to get approval is long, expensive, and fraught with peril (see the LightSquared debacle [1]).
This kind of regulation is ultimately justifiable. You don't want service providers using conflicting technologies and hammering each others airspace. You quickly end up with what economists call the tragedy of the commons[2].
It's my impression that the fact that a fairly limited range of frequencies are allocated for mobile phone use is a barrier to entry.
I don't think that's the main difference between the US and say... Germany though. I'm pretty sure German carriers are required to sell each other access to their networks under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, making it fairly easy to become a carrier without building a bunch of cell towers. The phones are all GSM and almost all unlocked, so it really is as easy to switch as getting a SIM from a new carrier.
This actually appears to be a case of more regulation, applied to just the right spot resulting in more competition. Politically, I'm not usually in favor of a lot of regulation, but it looks like it works in this case.
I believe because it is a government-granted monopoly there must be regulation to introduce competition or the customers will be taken advantage of (especially with something like internet which should be regulated as a utility in the first place).
Like your case in Germany, and elsewhere in Europe where they are required to lease the "last mile" at a reasonable price. Internet connections in countries with these regulations are much faster and the charges are less compared to the USA.
In the US, we HAD a history of controlling monopolies and oligopolies carefully - the trust-busting era, the steel breakup, the comparatively recent AT&T breakup - but the government has largely abdicated any significant role here. The notable exception was the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger, which, ironically, probably would have actually helped improve technology and push down prices because both of those carriers are moving into the prepaid/pay as you go space aggressively. Unfortunately, both also use GSM band technology...
With respect to unlocking, however, I can't fathom why the device manufacturers, particularly Google/Motorola Mobility, don't play the adults here. They have more to gain from impressing the end-consumer than making time with carriers. It has to be more expensive for manufacturers to create several different versions of the same device for different carriers. In many cases, these are all but different devices - not the same radios, not the same functions, often not even the same processors. If these manufacturers made their flagship devices with both CDMA and GSM radios operating on all common bands (deactivated or not, as need may be), they would benefit from economies of scale, lowering their costs and allowing the devices to sell, unlocked, at lower costs. This would make sales directly to end-consumers more realistic, which would FORCE the carriers to improve their service, in order to bring people into their no longer walled gardens. That would force improvements in speed, price, and quality.
Right now, I guess, manufacturers benefit from advertising done by the carriers, but they also suffer from the walled garden and loss of economies of scale. I have no way of knowing which is worth more to them, but we have yet to see a true, universal, unlocked device from a carrier. We can tweak world CDMA phones to "work" on GSM networks, but not too well so far.
Huh? As far as I can tell, cell phone service is getting better at a good clip. Were you routinely getting 10-20 Mbps of bandwidth three years ago? I wasn't.
My experience (in Australia) is not this. Sure, the number they write on the advertisement keeps getting bigger. But my mobile phone on Telstra CDMA circa 2001 was orders of magnitude better at making voice calls than my 3G Android phone today. It was a gradual decline. As the years went by, and I "upgraded", the quality of the phone call aspect of the device just went down and down and down. The computing and data aspect has got miles better, but the voice call 'feature' is now what I would consider broken.
I feel they are focusing on the data networks over the voice networks and phones are now computers, and all I really want is a reliable, robust voice call device, but I suppose I am not "the market" and the market wants shiny bells and whistles and apps that download content. Who makes calls anymore? I do.
I think you might rapidly be becoming a minority. The data service to my phone (ok 'phablet') is far more important to me than the voice aspect. I make a call a week on average, but use data constantly. This is not 'bells and whistles' and more, it's primary function.
I have a pocket-sized networked tablet that, as a bonus, can handle voice service pretty OK.
Most of these apps are advertising delivery mechanisms masquerading as utilities. Another role they have is to prevent copying of content or links from one fiefdom to another. In doing that, they represent a retreat from the ideal of a public forum.
I think this idea works best with relatively young people who don't clearly understand what they're giving up when they download a proprietary app in order to read what should be a public document.
The old Web has many problems, but freedom of expression remains in the plus column.