I think the rant might have more to do with the new cold war. Sounds like the security community is pressuring big tech to block adverse foreign media, and maybe fb is dragging their feet. According to "Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns" by Caitlyn Johnstone,
In June 2020:
* PayPal banned the words “Syria”, “Iran” and “Palestine” in all transaction messages. Payments fall ‘under review’.
* Twitter announced the takedown of 7,340 accounts linked to the youth wing of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey’s ruling party.
* Twitter partnered with ASPI -- a think tank funded by the US military -- to ban 170k accounts run by real Chinese people for writing in Chinese, praising China's COVID response, or criticizing the HK protests. Only anti-China views allowed!
* Twitter meanwhile continues to allow known fake accounts like the anti-Iran MEK propaganda operation “Heshmat Alavi” to continue inauthentically posing as real people. Only anti-Iran propaganda allowed.
* The censors at Facebook are systematically erasing the accounts of Palestinian journalists and photographers.
* Wikipedia, whose co-founder once told the US Senate that the online encyclopedia project “may be helpful to government operations and homeland security”, blacklisted Mintpress, The Grayzone, teleSur English, and Venezuela Analysis on a list of outlets that are never to be used under any circumstance as sources, under pressure from the U.S.-supported right-wing opposition in Venezuela.
* Wikipedia designated WikiLeaks an unreliable source, despite its nearly 14-year record of authentic publications.
Why?
“In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.” “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told.... “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”...
““As protesters hit the streets in cities across the country, America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to sow division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to a U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News,” we are told by the Disney-owned ABC. “These actors criticize the United States as hypocritical, corrupt, undemocratic, racist, guilty of human rights abuses and on the verge of collapsing,” the bulletin reads, which...is obviously true. This is...about people from other countries saying true things about the United States of America.”
"Epic took on Valve, which owned a monopoly game store, Steam, by launching its rival Epic Games Store. "
It's very difficult to call Valve a monopoly by the time Epic launched its store. Already at that time there was competitors like GOG, itch, Origin and the various publisher stores (battle.net, UPlay, Paradox store, etc.), and of course, the Windows Store which is installed by default on modern Windows installations. If anything, the trend was for publishers to start their own stores/launchers. The linked article itself mentions that EA quit Steam for years, and judging by their revenue reports[1], they did not suffer for it all that much (if at all).
Matt, maybe you should read Apple’s response to Basecamp. Entire letter is quoted in the coverage at The Verge.
The app, while free, is worthless without a subscription. Given Basecamp’s business model, I’m not sure there is any good reason for an app instead of a web app.
As for the complaints about Apple’s 30% cut, well, if a 70% cut isn’t enough, that’s on the developers.
Gruber’s position, IIRC, is that he sees an inconsistency in how Apple manages these things as opposed to Basecamp’s position being correct. A subtle differentiation, but the whole situation is nuanced and I don’t think things have been reported fully, simply, clearly. In other words, there’s probably an issue with the App Store but I’m not sure it’s that its handling of Basecamp is wrong.
I think the rant might have more to do with the new cold war. Sounds like the security community is pressuring big tech to block adverse foreign media, and maybe fb is dragging their feet. According to "Narrative Control Operations Escalate As America Burns" by Caitlyn Johnstone,
In June 2020:
* PayPal banned the words “Syria”, “Iran” and “Palestine” in all transaction messages. Payments fall ‘under review’.
* Twitter announced the takedown of 7,340 accounts linked to the youth wing of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey’s ruling party.
* Twitter partnered with ASPI -- a think tank funded by the US military -- to ban 170k accounts run by real Chinese people for writing in Chinese, praising China's COVID response, or criticizing the HK protests. Only anti-China views allowed!
* Twitter meanwhile continues to allow known fake accounts like the anti-Iran MEK propaganda operation “Heshmat Alavi” to continue inauthentically posing as real people. Only anti-Iran propaganda allowed.
* The censors at Facebook are systematically erasing the accounts of Palestinian journalists and photographers.
* Wikipedia, whose co-founder once told the US Senate that the online encyclopedia project “may be helpful to government operations and homeland security”, blacklisted Mintpress, The Grayzone, teleSur English, and Venezuela Analysis on a list of outlets that are never to be used under any circumstance as sources, under pressure from the U.S.-supported right-wing opposition in Venezuela.
* Wikipedia designated WikiLeaks an unreliable source, despite its nearly 14-year record of authentic publications.
Why?
“In 2017, representatives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google were instructed in a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that it is their responsibility to “quell information rebellions” and adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment to “prevent the fomenting of discord.” “Civil wars don’t start with gunshots, they start with words,” the representatives were told.... “America’s war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America.”...
““As protesters hit the streets in cities across the country, America’s foreign adversaries have flooded social media with content meant to sow division and discord in the wake of George Floyd’s death, according to a U.S. government intelligence bulletin obtained by ABC News,” we are told by the Disney-owned ABC. “These actors criticize the United States as hypocritical, corrupt, undemocratic, racist, guilty of human rights abuses and on the verge of collapsing,” the bulletin reads, which...is obviously true. This is...about people from other countries saying true things about the United States of America.”
"Epic took on Valve, which owned a monopoly game store, Steam, by launching its rival Epic Games Store. "
It's very difficult to call Valve a monopoly by the time Epic launched its store. Already at that time there was competitors like GOG, itch, Origin and the various publisher stores (battle.net, UPlay, Paradox store, etc.), and of course, the Windows Store which is installed by default on modern Windows installations. If anything, the trend was for publishers to start their own stores/launchers. The linked article itself mentions that EA quit Steam for years, and judging by their revenue reports[1], they did not suffer for it all that much (if at all).
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/EA/electronic-arts/revenue
Thanks Matt for clearly stating that this is indeed about money and power above all else. As ever, a great read.
Matt, maybe you should read Apple’s response to Basecamp. Entire letter is quoted in the coverage at The Verge.
The app, while free, is worthless without a subscription. Given Basecamp’s business model, I’m not sure there is any good reason for an app instead of a web app.
As for the complaints about Apple’s 30% cut, well, if a 70% cut isn’t enough, that’s on the developers.
Gruber’s position, IIRC, is that he sees an inconsistency in how Apple manages these things as opposed to Basecamp’s position being correct. A subtle differentiation, but the whole situation is nuanced and I don’t think things have been reported fully, simply, clearly. In other words, there’s probably an issue with the App Store but I’m not sure it’s that its handling of Basecamp is wrong.