Thought this was worth its own thread as it’s relevant to pretty much every Tech giant (except strangely, Microsoft).
Looks like WhatsApp are pushing ahead with the privacy policy changes after the short recess and have gone with the stick to make users agree.
The media coverage on the Australian News Media Bargaining Code has been farcical, with every outlet taking potshots and Facebook and Google.
From what I can see the law is a joke. Big media companies have crappy business models and so (with Government approval) have arranged a shakedown of Google and Facebook. What seemingly goes unsaid is that they rely on said traffic to keep their business going but somehow feel they should be paid for this support?
Does that analysis include the actual physical news gathering and content generation?
Tim Berners-Lee must be suicidal, watching everyone slumped in the rancid corner of world wide web that is Facebook. It’s like going on a world tour and just sitting in the hotel every day watching the travel channel.
The web has obviously hurt News orgs. They no longer enjoy natural local monpolies and have to compete for attention on the web with every other thing that warrants user attention. But how many have actually tried to really change their business model to adapt to this new world?
It’s interesting that the best coverage I’ve seen on this comes from the NYT, who coincidentally have a coherent strategy and are thriving.
I’'m not too sure how chuffed he’d be about charging for links either.
I’m fairly sure Facebook is everything he hates about how people use the web, and wish it would die.
The point is, news organisation can’t afford to pay for it because Facebook and Google get 87% of the ad revenue generated by people reading the news, just by republishing it. Who will write the news if news organisations go bust? Not Facebook and Google.
(I’m talking about proper, BBC-type news, not Buzzfeed shite where an intern vomits up ‘You’ll never believe the 50 gifs we lolled at during the last 10 years of X Factor’ clickbait.)
Boohoo. There are countless examples of industries being disrupted by the internet. But are successful companies expected to subsidise the duffers. Should Netflix be paying Blockbuster or ASOS coughing up to Debenhams?
Do Google and Facebook actually republish the news? As far as I can see they are huge sources of page views for news sites, who obviously don’t do a good enough job of attracting readers directly so have to rely on search and social media instead.
How news should be funded is a completely valid question. But this law doesn’t address it. This is literally just a transfer of profits from Google to News Corp shareholders (and other news giants). Small outlets are SOOL and there are no restrictions at all on having to spend the money on journalism.
It’s not an actual news tax (which I’m not against), paid to the government for redistribution. It’s Rupert Murdoch shaking down Google and Facebook. There’s nothing noble going on.
And just to make it really clear that this has nothing to do with news, Google have somehow sidestepped the actual legislation by making private deals.
This feels a bit dubious. If your app features “obvious” functionality that makes sense for the OS to include, you should expect to be Sherlocked at some point. Without the Diversity angle would this make any sort of shockwave?
Yep. I want to get my pre-iPhone photos transferred in and can’t be bothered to put in the work.
Have they not heard of Google Takeout?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that this directly transfers data into Google
Photos without any work involved. But Google have pretty much been the leaders at giving you the ability to get at your data.
To be fair, with the amount they collect, they bloody well should!
Ultimately, it’s not the data that provides the stickiness. It’s the entirety of the ecosystem you’ve bought into.
I’m not pretending to be a Takeout expert but I used it a few weeks back to download my 50GB music library and it worked adequately.
By no means effort free but it did the job.
Takeout has existed for something like 10 years so well before GDPR. No idea if it’s region restricted.
Honestly I don’t know how good Apple are at this as I don’t use them to store any data that’s not also on a physical drive connected to my Mac.
My point was based on the premise that you can get at your data (bugs etc aside).
Unless you have money to burn, it’s non trivial to change your Apple Watch, HomePods, iOS only apps, Messaging ecosystem and anything else up to and including your car to work with your new phone.
All those extras that make the experience so fantastic are what keep you locked in.