In the early days, there was no app store. Only pre-installed Apple apps, and Jobs intended for devs to create web-based apps. No joke.

I remember. Then when the App Store came out and Apple could get a 30% cut of every app sale, he said that web-based apps were inferior because they lacked a cohesive appearance/behavior and their performance was limited compared to native apps.

In the early days of the App Store, they were quite strict about restricting any apps that competed with their own (ex. Mail and Safari).

That's also true, but since those apps already existed, you knew you were taking a chance by implementing an application that competes with one from Apple. In the case I was talking about, developers felt like their app was safe since it didn't compete with an existing app from Apple until Apple comes along later and blindsides them with competition.

That doesn't seem all that different.

The difference is that: the market is now more entrenched, so the competition is more stiff and at any point Apple may come out of nowhere and start competing with their own third-party developers.

TFA says Musi made over $100M in a year. Though I disagree with their rules and behavior (the risk), the reward has always seemed worth it for those that succeed even a bit, which is probably why there hasn't been a bigger uprising / boycott / exodus / reaction of some sort.

I've never heard of that app, but it sounds like it's far more successful than most. That means there are many apps that struggle to get anywhere and the ones that are successful can be delisted at Apple's whim. I'm not stating that to challenge the validity of the court's decision, I'm just recognizing the extra risks third-party developers are currently up against and questioning if it's still worth it.

I don't understand the mindset of getting involved in the iOS app market today. It made more sense in the early days but now the market is highly entrenched and Apple can either delist your app for no reason or release a competing app that doesn't have the usual restrictions of third-party developers. The risk to reward ratio seems to have drifted way too far.

as if a bunch of gambling addicted basement folk somehow voltron up to form a giant soothsaying oracle

Big Money is now involved in prediction markets. They have far more access to information than the basement folk, they're addicted to increasing their wealth, and they have far more power to influence outcomes. The basement folk are the plankton that feed the whales.

And since these markets are becoming good at predicting events, more people are understandably considering them a reliable source of information. This is particularly dangerous because wealthy people can inject lots of money into the outcome they want to happen, regardless of its initial likelihood, and essentially manifest their desires - people who are easily influenced will go along with it because they want to feel like they're on the "winning" side and opponents of the outcome will feel disenfranchised, making them less likely to resist since the odds appear to be so stacked against them.

More proof that it's better to be entrenched than to be good.

Where microseconds for trades is too long but quarterly reporting is too short.

Well, when the heavily armed and masked ICE agents arrive at your polling place, I hope you are ready to tell them to go away...

Governors could quietly ignore the orders or say they're going to follow them and then just don't. The latter would give Trump little to no time to deploy ICE to those polling places on a large scale.

Some significant proportion of states, including some with potentially close elections, have governors who would probably not resist

That's a very sad truth and shame on those leaders for selling out their constituents and fellow citizens because they're too chickenshit to show some spine.

But the interviews I've heard with state and particularly local election officials show a high degree of concern

Please don't mistake my demeanor for lack of concern. My biggest concern is that people feel helpless against this administration and therefore show no will to resist. Power cannot just be taken - in every case it is simultaneously ceded by those who lose it. Even when resistance seems futile, I'd rather try to resist than have to live with the consequences of my own inaction. And if such resistance is necessary, it's critical that it be non-violent. I have little doubt that fuckery is afoot, but it's important to remain confidently defiant even if we end up facing an unprecedented threat against U.S. democracy.

It's not a tax on billionaires, it's payment of a bribe that got the federal government to force cession of a popular foreign-owned social media network into the hands of oligarchs.

The risk here is not the actual success of an EO, but the chaos it would create if executed close to the election date

The states (at least the ones with any sort of spine) could just ignore it. Executive Orders are directives the President provides to departments of the federal government over matters that are within federal jurisdiction. The constitution is so clear about elections being matters of the state that it would be foolish for anyone to even entertain the possibility that the federal government has any jurisdiction, let alone something granted by an order that only applies to federal departments. Besides, it's not like Trump gives a fuck about following legitimate laws, so why should states care about following an EO that obviously has no semblance of legitimacy or jurisdiction?

Free markets are how you get monopolies: there are little to no regulations in a free market, so companies can engage in extremely anti-competitive behaviors which allow them to corner the market.

Didn't you ever play the board game? Since there's no regulation or oversight to stop players from owning too much of the market, the person with the largest combination of luck and greed ends up owning everything while the rest have to resort to giving HJ's under Boardwalk to afford to live in the slums of Baltic Ave.

I cant imagine this designation surviving judicial scrutiny

It's not intended to pass judicial scrutiny. As with every case of Trump not getting what he wants, it's designed to inflict maximum pain, regardless of the outcome, and ultimately make it easier to just capitulate to all of his demands. It's a classic extortion tactic: "all of this would go away if you just give us everything we want".

Points to the doll's wallet

The current state of windows is dominated with stagnance at best and enshittification at worst. At the moment, Windows is plagued by:

• Users on Win10 that can't upgrade due to specious hardware requirements
• Stagnance (what is the last exciting feature that was added to Windows?)
• Buggy updates that break basic functionality
• Required online accounts
• AI features nobody asked for which raise many valid concerns about privacy

And in addition to that, the alternative options have never been better. It's never been easier to buy a device with Linux, such as the SteamDeck, or install a Linux distro customized for great gaming performance and ease-of-use. If you're not a gamer, these new Mac Neos provide a cheap gateway for casual Windows users to wander over to the macOS platform. And all the while Microsoft seems completely uninterested in improving their position against these threats. And even if they did care to change things, they haven't recently shown that they're capable of offering any products or features that will generate excitement for Windows.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that Windows is dead - just that it has a serious disease and I don't see any urgency on Microsoft's part to take it seriously.

I'm not going to comment on the legality of Valve loot boxes, but I don't see how they're significantly different from trading cards, Lebubus, Funko POP! Mystery boxes, or many of other items of chance that have been targeting children for many decades. All I'm going to argue is that the law should be enforced equally across these products and right now that doesn't seem to be happening.

And yet not entirely inappropriate when reacting to attempts of manipulation and coercion.

It doesn't bother some women, but I don't want to offend the ones that it does. Being offensive is just not what I'm about.

Agreed, and since I'm in a male-dominated industry, I want women to feel comfortable at their jobs.

But I imagine that is much different between Canadians and Americans. Americans seem to take pride in being offensive, almost like the right to offend people is in the Constitution and any violation is a threat to their freedom.

As an American, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. While some Americans are just straight-up assholes (pretty much every country has those, even Canada), most Americans really hate when certain language and behaviors are attempted to be forced. It's amazing that after 250 years, Americans still have an extremely rebellious spirit and hate being told what to do or say. If you want an American to do something, the last thing you should do is say that they have to do it.