When buying a taco without installing the tacocorp app is treated as a weird edge case, we have reached capitalistic hellscape. We are pretty close.

Oh no not the tacocorp app.

People don't actually care about answering this question, they just want to steal music and keep a 'clean' conscience.

I think the opposite is actually true - people want to pay for music, but in a way that compensates the artists they like without enriching someone who 'only' provides the mechanism that they use to listen. People rail against Spotify, music labels, and TicketMaster for extracting so much money from the music industry that there's very little left for people who actually make the music.

The music industry has made millionaires out of people who would otherwise just be playing or singing in a room.

The software industry has made millionaires out of people that would otherwise just be hacking or debugging in a room.

Nope! I just think the business model is rotten. I worked at Amazon MP3 back in the day, mostly because I adored the concept of people paying to download DRM-free files. Same reason I use GOG for my games: I have a lot of money waiting for people that want to sell me files that I have control over.

But the industry moved another direction, and they want ultimate control over everything: not just the songs themselves, but the clients to play them and everything in between. And the tragedy is they screw the artists just as much as customers. Copyright has been captured by the middlemen at the expense of the artists and audiences: that's the real reason people have no respect for the industry, and why copyright is so reviled.

>Because cloud monetization was awful

Citation needed

Do you like losing money?

> Do you like losing money?

what about us losing control over our own devices? do you like losing control over devices you paid for?

People have no "control" over their own device if they have malware on it. The weirdo incoherent tech-chauvinism of "control" and "freedom" evidenced all over this thread is one of the most obnoxious trends on HN.

> People have no "control" over their own device if they have malware on it.

You are inadvertently reaching the true core of the question. The ones who have "control" over a device, are those who control the software running on it. Be it the bad guys (in the case of a malware-infested device), a giant corporation (in the case of a locked-down device), or yourself (when you can install and replace any software you want on the device).

Their point stands, though. The vast majority of users do not have either kind of control, so it is a very small concession to them in favor of securing their device against a malicious actor taking control.

I think this is what commenters here are missing. I agree politically with the notion that people should own their devices (having full control), but the reality is not and will never be that the majority have anything but the illusion of control. Meanwhile, as these devices become increasingly necessary for people to exist at all, and the data they store becomes increasingly sensitive, the ability to theoretically install your own software is completely irrelevant compared to the risk of anything bad happening.

Things that would be compromised if my phone is compromised: All private communication, bank accounts, stock portfolio, medical history, driver's license, criminal record, sexual history, grocery habits, all communication between my government and me, real estate deeds and mortgages, two-factor authentication keys, and I suppose my Steam library.

Like, that's a lot. People can lose their homes. The stakes are unfathomably high here.

The horse is driving the carriage here.

Why and how is this protecting against a malicious actors? You can't skip that part.

What about malicious actors that are entrenched, like Meta and even Google? Does this not strengthen them?

It's pretty clearly an attempt to establish a clear chain of trust. If you are making a malicious app, the first thing you want to do is hide your identity. It is incredibly important that users can know whose code they are running, and who is responsible for the behavior of the malicious app that destroyed their life.

I can't say whether the specific implementation will be an improvement, but that is clearly the intent.

Meta and Google have not shown themselves to be "malicious" in sense that is relevant to this discussions. Whatever shady practices they may or may not have is very likely entirely within the law, and they are strongly motivated to protect people's personal data, because they will not have users (i.e., their product) if their platforms are insecure.

Meta has been shown to be malicious, up to an including violating permission controls to exfiltrate cookies from the browser with the facilitation of an android app.

The only reason, and it is the only reason, you do not view Meta as a malicious actor is because they've told you many times they are not.

Most Meta and Google products could be described as keyloggers or spyware. Many break permissions expectations - for example, Google apps have special privileges that allow them to circumvent some permissions on Android.

In addition, both Meta and Google products are primarily ad driven, with the majority of ads being scams. Again, virtually identical to other malicious apps.

Is any of this legal? Maybe, maybe not, you signed a EULA. But if all it takes is a EULA, then most android malware is not malware, and we're back at square one: play protect will not do anything.

And, to be clear, this is intentional. It is not Googles intention to squander malware because they rely on malware. No malware on Android and they go bankrupt.

It is their intention to further extract value out of the Google play store by leveraging their mandatory 30% cut. As well as making Android a more locked down platform and thereby more attractive to advertisers and DRM distributors.

I'm sorry, but I don't think it's reasonable to equate the shady business practices of organizations like Meta to crypto-blackmailing malware.

That's just one type of malware - spyware is also malware.

The only difference between a malicious app exfilitrating your cookies through an exploit and Meta exfilitrating your cookies through an exploit is you trust Meta won't use your cookies to impersonate you, steal your browser sessions, drain your bank account, etc.

But that's just pure trust. Meta could easily have a leak - Experian had a leak and people lost millions of dollars.

Would you give your car keys to a company, in fear that a thief might steal it?

Of course i care that i lose money.

I dont care that google loses money.

I don't expect them to do so, but I will make them

Phones come in dozens of different sizes too, what are you on about? TVs come in a greater range of sizes because they're designed for different viewing distances and room configurations. Phones don't have this variable, you hold them in your hand.

Yes Trump and the capitalists are hiding the cure, you're right

Yes and also there is zero aesthetic thought put into japanese towns which is why they're so ugly, everything is functional

I would say that functionality requires a minimum sense of aesthetics.

Most Japanese towns are not even functional, they are just a chaotic maze of tiny streets and ugly buildings. I know because I live in one.

Looks exactly like Greece!

Athens being its own special hell, looking across the city from Lykovounia and seeing everything in the city at the same ~5 storey level of dark concrete.