Comment Re: overreach (Score 1) 248
And homeopathic "medicine" is still for sale.
It's pure water, sugar, etc - it doesn't actually do anything - so it's safe.
And homeopathic "medicine" is still for sale.
It's pure water, sugar, etc - it doesn't actually do anything - so it's safe.
Sure, it's supported. Usable, that's a whole different story.
We do have iPhone 4 and 4s phones in our organization now, and users are complaining they are slow. Must be an Apple fan, it does not register in your brain that all these updates slow down these phones, in some cases dramatically so. I'm pretty sure there was a story on this site with users of older iPads saying they updated their device by mistake and performance is terrible and there's no way to go back to the old version.
Then you have already used them for 5-6 years (iphone 4 was 2010), that's very good lifespan for a phone. At some point, switch and move on.
I find it amusing how conservatives, who are usually the most energetic at raging against regulations and the mommy state, are the most eager to impose mountains of regulations, draconian censorship and generally the mommy state on the public in order to regulate other people's sexual behaviour. I
This goes for conservatives (Republicans) in the US as well. They're against regulation of businesses, but they sure are happy about regulating people's personal life..
The commission is the only entity that can propose legislation. Usually, you do elect the people who can propose legislation.
The power of the actual elected body, the European Parliament, is still quite limited. They don't even have enough power to prevent their forced relocation from Brussles to Strassbourgh every month, rather being caught in a perpetual schoolyard bully 'stop hitting yourself' moment. They've managed to block legislation, what, once in history?
There are good and bad things about the EU, but democratic credibility isn't one of the good ones.
The power is limited, because most of of the power lies at a different elected level - the individual governments of each nation. The reason for this is to avoid the larger countries not having to care about the smaller ones. The principle here is not too different from the principle of the US Senate.
Most of the articles on this dispute aren't getting too deep into what's going on, but here's some more information...
1. Spotify's current app allows users to subscribe through the app, using Apple's billing system, which gives Apple of cut. User's can also subscribe on the Spotify website, which bypasses Apple's cut.
2. Spotify is not allowed to advertise through the app that users can subscribe on a website outside the app. Spotify and Apple have had a dispute over this in the past, but Spotify chose to do as Apple asked, and removed all in-app subscription advertising targeted at iPhone users.
3. Spotify is now trying to submit a new version of their app that offers no in-app subscription method, period, and also has no advertising or instructions on how a user can get a subscription. Spotify is assuming that even with no in-app advertising or instructions, users will figure out that they can subscribe on the website.
4. Apple is claiming that this is still breaking the rules, and thus is rejecting the new version of the app. Spotify is claiming that this doesn't break the rules, and that Apple is just going to keep rejecting the new version of the app as long as they can so that users are stuck using the older version of the app that still has in-app purchases, from which Apple gets a cut.
It looks as though the "offers no in-app subscription method, period" is a bit misleading - according to Ars Technica, Spotify replaced the link with automatically sending you an email that you could use to sign up.
No they are not free to not use Apple to start subscriptions. If you read the article, you'll find that Spotify's update removes that and Apple has rejected the update. Despite the fact that Netflix, Amazon Video and countless other subscription services do not offer subscriptions via Apple in their apps.
It's not that they removed it, it's that they replaced it - with a mechanism that sends you an email to sign up via the web site. Drop that, and the problem is solved.
Oh but it has not. From the original article:
"Spotify stopped advertising the promotion. But it also turned off its App Store billing option, which has led to the current dispute."
Compare to Amazon Video. You can't buy videos or subscribe to Prime from the app, and yet it hasn't been kicked out of the store. So why is Apple threatening to do this to Spotify? I can't *possibly* be because of Apple Music, is it?
This smells very much like an anti-trust issue.
The problem with the Spotify app, is that they want to do it easy to sign up from the web site from within the app. If they just dropped that, and just allowed you to log in if you had an existing account - or sign up via the app store if you don't have one - everything would be as it used to be, and the app would be accepted.
What Apple does not like, is that if you don't have an account you're referred to Spotify's web page to sign up and pay there.
If you want to sell SUBSCRIPTIONS via your App on Apple, you have to give them a cut. There are means to circumvent (having people go to your website to signup and pay) but taking payment and not giving apple their pound of flesh has always been operating procedure. I am unsure the problem here? I mean, you might not like the terms (30% is a lot) but it hasn't changed in years.
30% was pretty low for applications at the time the app store - if you sold it any other way (physical stores, carrier app stores etc) and you'd get far less. Subscriptions for magazines were also a bargain for the publishers - it's not like you'd get 70% from retail stores. The only problem there was Apple's privacy guidelines, meaning they didn't get the valuable subscriber information.
For outlets like spotify, this is a much bigger problem. When you pay 70% of your renenue in licensing costs, you can't pay 30% to Apple as well.
That is the amount of fucks given about the prospect of Apple gobbling up the most hyped music streaming service that no individual actually knows a subscriber of.
I subscribe to it, and have done so for many years - I started way before Jay Z bought it. Back in the day, it had nice curated playlists - which spotify did not have. It also added lossless streaming, which I wanted.
These days, the playlists in Apple Music are far more numerous and fits me better - the increased focus on music I don't like in Tidal (hip hop) makes a exit more likely. If only Apple Music had lossless....
is why I'd like to see a return to the old tax rates from the 50s,60s and 70s before "Reganomics" took hold. When you've got as much cash as Apple why _not_ just buy every single possible competitor... I mean, wasn't Tidal another one of those services started _because_ of the crappy deals Apple gave artists?
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What the hell kind of idiots are sending ransomware to people looking for jobs? Can't get blood from a stone...
The ransomware is embedded in the application, and sent to companies. It's not sent to job seekers.
You don't even have your facts right. Much of the lawsuit concerned negligence on the part of the hotel staff, but that's obviously far too fine of a distinction to penetrate your plate mail.
As it happens, I spent the entire afternoon reading about the collapse of Internet comment sections. Comments of the sort you just made were mentioned. Rather frequently. Would you like to add something derogatory about native people to complete your full house? CBC cited in particular the incivility in any article concerning first nations people. Articles concerning women as victims were no doubt not all that far behind. A few women daring to share their stories online were received the friendly advice to go kill themselves.
Here's a hint. It could have ended a lot worse for this chick. For all anyone knows he actually tried the door handle, before settling for just a blurry keepsake. Even without this consideration, the violation of her physical privacy was already bad enough.
You don't punish for what if-s. And that someone social engineered a reception clerk is not a $ 55 million mistake.
In general, I don't think anything should give a $ 55 million unless that's actual damages. It's absurd, and in no way proportional to the damage done - just like the main case in this discussion. This has nothing to do with maltreatment of women (or even native people), it's just that the award is so completely out of proportion to the harm.
A different example: If the receptionist at a hotel was a jerk and broke my nose for complaining about something, I would be understandably mad. But if I got $50 million out of it, it would afterwards have been of the best things that had ever happened to me - and completely out of proportion to the damage done.
IMNSHO, locking away the creep for a long time is the right thing to do. But $55 million USD from the hotel? Completely and utterly insane, and in 20 years she'll be happy about it. The compensation is way, way more than the damage done.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
