• TheHottub@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    “Unprecedented” and “Slammed”

    I read those two words in any article and I’m immediately second guessing my will to read more.

  • ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’m getting really tired of the word slammed, maybe writers need to pick up a thesaurus (it’s a dinosaur that knows a lot of words).

    • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      I quite like it because you can spot shitty journalism from a mile away and not click the link

    • ramirezmike@programming.dev
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      2 months ago

      I studied news journalism in college and they kinda hammered in that in news journalism it’s more important to communicate information consistently and to target a wide audience than it is to make “good writing.”

      There are style guides you have to follow and words like “slammed” end up getting used a lot despite not quite being accurate because they’re words that are used a lot.

      The other thing is that usually the person writing the headlines isn’t the journalist… and sometimes they do a lot of versions of the same headline and when people click more because of the word slammed it ends up sticking.

      • WallEx@feddit.de
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        2 months ago

        So they use the word often, because its often used by them? Pretty ass backwards, but also makes sense for sensationalist “journalism”

        • ramirezmike@programming.dev
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          2 months ago

          I don’t see how it’s backwards, the word drives clicks and is commonly used. It’s unfortunate but most journalism has to be profit-motivated to survive these days.

    • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Angry reader slammed article due to a word in its title - you might be surprised to find out which

  • Jumi@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    If I read someone getting slammed in a headline I instantly lose all interest

    • paf0@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s how The Herald rolls, it has long been the most sensationalistic Boston newspaper.

    • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Every time I read SLAMMED in an headline, my brain damage grows exponentially worse. I can’t keep taking these kind of blows…

    • JIMMERZ@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Some say the slam was so hard the shockwaves were felt on the other side of the globe.

  • Hiko0@feddit.de
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    2 months ago

    It‘s a duopoly and I doubt the US will tackle this problem. At least the EU has started doing something about it.

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      Some nuance to that. The software platform is a duopoly, the hardware is not.

      Not that it matters too much, because anticompetitive practices don’t need a 100% or even a 50% market share.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          2 months ago

          I guess it depends. If Apple made iOS available on other hardware this conversation would be different, I bet. The problem with Apple’s practices is the “ecosystem” approach. You get one of their devices and you HAVE to use their OS, you HAVE to use their core app bundle, you HAVE to use their store. And in a number of things where you don’t have to, you’re heavily incentivized or the competition is made less competitive. And now you’re on a software platform that only works with Apple hardware, so now you have an incentive to migrate your other computing devices (laptops, desktops, smart TVs) to be from Apple, too, because that’s where your compatible software lives.

          It’s the sort of practice antitrust laws exist to prevent.

          Google is no saint and will do as much of this as they’re allowed, but at least the nature of their OS and the diversity of manufacturers and OS customizations means they don’t control the ecosystem end to end. The biggest manufacturer is Samsung, and they will ship with their browser, an alternate store, a different mail client and a bunch of OS modifications Google doesn’t control, so Samsung and Google give each other some plausible deniability within the Android ecosystem oligopoly.

      • chalk46@kbin.social
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        2 months ago

        and even then, Android is mostly open source.
        I’ve personally updated the kernel to my Amazon Fire tablet (and believe me, the 3.18 branch doesn’t contain as many security backports as they’d have you believe)

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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          2 months ago

          Antitrust is not about whether people have the arbitrary ability to go around it, it’s about whether people actually go around it, and if not, is that because one player entrenched themselves in the market that they are able to distort it.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
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            2 months ago

            I mean, you’re both right.

            Yes, the use of OSS by Google doesn’t exempt them from antitrust laws.

            But also yes, it does give them a defense that Apple just doesn’t have. Not solely because of the OS portions, but also because it tends to guarantee some nominal competition. See above my point about Samsung’s alternatives.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      US won’t tackle it because it’s a hegemon and in mercantilist terms benefits from it.

      The EU and everybody else are, in fact, interested in changing this.

      But - if nobody remembers, there was a certain TRON Project in Japan. Read up how it ended. Now, US threatening Japan with trade sanctions to preserve some oligopoly and US threatening EU with trade sanctions with the same goal are two different things, the latter is harder.

      EDIT: And I don’t want this to rub someone in a wrong way, but this is a rare case where something possibly called “states’ rights” could have made sense. If the federal government was stripped of ability to do such things.

      • Hiko0@feddit.de
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        2 months ago

        You‘re right. That‘s why we need a strong EU and multilateral partnerships to counter US and Chinese ambitions.

  • Jimmycakes@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    If you use slammed in your headline I already know it’s going to be the most garbage bullshit I’ve ever read. I went delve into it.

  • Defaced@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Well the article title sucks, but also it’s not a monopoly so idk what she’s bitching about.

  • Drusenija@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Article text if you can’t be bothered getting around the subscription popup.

    U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she’s not a fan of “green texts on iPhones” and that it’s “time to break up Apple’s smartphone monopoly,” but statistics show the tech giant doesn’t have exclusive control over the market.

    The Department of Justice announced a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Apple in March, accusing the California-based company of engineering an illegal monopoly in smartphones that boxes out competitors, stifles innovation and keeps prices artificially high.

    Warren took to social media this week, displaying her support for the suit that takes aim at how Apple allegedly molds its technology and business relationships to “extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others.”

    Warren specifically called out how people who don’t have iPhones are blocked from sending blue iMessages as messages from Androids and other devices are green. Those without iPhones also face other restrictions, the Massachusetts senator added.

    “Green texts on iPhones, they’re ruining relationships. That’s right,” Warren said in a video posted on X Thursday. “Non-iPhone users everywhere are being excluded from group texts. From sports teams chats to birthday chats to vacation plan chats, they’re getting cut out.”

    “And who’s to blame here? Apple,” she continued . “That’s just one of the dirty tactics that Apple uses to keep a stranglehold on the smartphone market. …  It’s time to break up Apple’s monopoly now.”

    Critics quickly called Warren out for spreading misinformation and for focusing on what they believe is a non-issue.

    “It would be nice if Android users could use iMessage features,” an X user responded, “but why would anyone think this sort of micromanaging of businesses is the legitimate role of the government?”

    An alert attached to Warren’s post shows context that readers added and “thought people might want to know.” It includes data from Statista highlighting how the iPhone had a 57% market share compared to Android’s 42% in North America, as of January.

    The alert, which was removed as of Friday evening, also contained information from Investopedia around how a “monopoly is exclusive control, or no close substitutes.  The current market share of iPhone v Android does not meet that definition.”

    Attorneys general from 16 states filed the lawsuit with the Department of Justice in federal court in New Jersey. Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell did not sign onto the suit which seeks to stop Apple from undermining technologies that compete with its own apps — in areas including streaming, messaging and digital payments.

    The suit is the latest example of aggressive antitrust enforcement by an administration that has also taken on Google, Amazon and other tech giants with the stated aim of making the digital universe more fair, innovative and competitive.

    “If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement last month. “The Justice Department will vigorously enforce antitrust laws that protect consumers from higher prices and fewer choices.”

    Apple has called the suit “wrong on the facts and the law” and said it “will vigorously defend against it.”

    If successful, the lawsuit would  “hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect” and would “set a dangerous precedent, empowering the government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology,” the company said in a statement last month.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      Actually that’s the case where she, being incompetent, found the right point to press.

      She literally attacks the use of network effect to preserve oligopoly. Not knowing that.

      And yeah, there is deniability for Apple in the sense that “this isn’t intentional, normies are just creating these ape social dynamics all by themselves”, but their ads etc have pretty consistent emotional messages. Yes, they do endorse it.

      And they couldn’t refrain from their usual bullshit even in the answer to this.

      • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Blue texts are sent using proprietary encryption. Green texts are standard SMS/MMS protocol. Apple has pressed GSM to include encrypted RCS for SMS/MMS. The government is not a fan. She can be upset, but there’s no reason for Apple to give away proprietary encryption software or foot the server cost for transmission.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          First of all proprietary encryption is BS which should be equated to obfuscation instead of encryption.

          Second, I think I’ve addressed this:

          but their ads etc have pretty consistent emotional messages. Yes, they do endorse it.

            • moonpiedumplings@programming.dev
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              2 months ago

              This is just straight wrong. iMessage on android has worked by connecting to a remote Mac, which then connects to imessage. The protocol is locked to their hardware.

              And, even if there was a true open source reimplimplementation of iMessage, that would say nothing about the security of Apple’s proprietary implementation of the iMessage end to end encryption.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              2 months ago

              This is like if a neural net had been fed Apple ads and Apple fans’ weird ideas on computing.

              Try to understand that imitating the way Apple PR talks doesn’t sound geeky, it sounds awfully ignorant.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    I didn’t know Apple was a monopoly…

    They are absolute dicks with iMessage, but they are not a monopoly.

    I am an iPhone user, and I don’t get why people look down on the green bubbles, I have several friends with Android phones, we can all send images and texts to eachother, sure the photos are reduced in size, but it’s fine.

    Just implement the new message standard, Apple and stop being dicks

    • MudMan@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      You kinda walked that back by yourself, I think. The point of anticompetitive practices isn’t having a 100% market share, it’s having a position of strength to enforce your control of the market.

      So… you know, being dicks.

      Enforcing a single form of in-platform commerce where you get a share and banning all other ways to sell or install software, downgrading the quality of media generated by your competitors, bundling your own unrelated software and adding roadblocks to competing alternatives… all of that is part of what’s being discussed here.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
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        2 months ago

        The point is that there is a resonable alternative in Android, no one is forcing you to buy an iPhone, nor is the market lacking in available alternatives.

        Yes, Apple are dicks, but they don’t have a monopoly.

        • MudMan@fedia.io
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          2 months ago

          See, that’s the problem with modern politics. Warren knows very well that “a monopoly” understood as “the single remaining actor in a market” is imprecise and not the bar needed for antitrust laws to kick in. But she also knows that “an anticompetitive position of strength in the market” will not make the same headlines and confuse people.

          So she says “a monopoly”.

          So you say “not a monopoly”.

          So this is a sterile conversation.

          Antitrust laws are in place to prevent the specific behaviors Apple has been engaging in for ages. From the muscling out of third party repair shops to the attempt to bundle together every piece of software and hardware they make in-house, Apple is blatantly violating competition rules all over the place. The only reason they haven’t been more aggressively regulated already elsewhere is their monopolistic price-hiking doesn’t play in territories that are more sensitive to pricing for tech. Maybe on purpose? Hard to tell. If Apple had the type of market share across the EU it has in the US one can only imagine what sort of fines or threats to split it up it would have received by this point.

    • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      They haven’t implemented RCS because it’s a dumpster fire with no redeeming qualities.

      “RCS” only works on Android because Google did a bunch of their own shit outside the spec to make it remotely functional. They’re trying to use legislature to bully their way into controlling the standard by forcing Apple to use it.