Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@besendorf @lennybacon @breakdownthewalls @AwetTesfaiesus @GrapheneOS Now, your bank example: your bank introduces friction to its own services, not to the services of competitors.

@besendorf @lennybacon @breakdownthewalls @AwetTesfaiesus @GrapheneOS Its clear that Google wants to introduce friction. Google has been found to be a monopolist in many countries around the world. Monopolists aka gatekeepers are known for introducing friction for competitors to maintain their monopoly. Google is not introducing this friction to Google Play, but only to competitors. There is plenty of malware in Google Play itself. This is illegal trust building. They are self-preferencing

@besendorf @lennybacon @breakdownthewalls @AwetTesfaiesus @GrapheneOS

* Google's original proposal solely gave themselves the ability to turn off all apps on Android for any developer they chose for any reason.

* Google's current proposal requires turning on Developer Mode. I know of no technically sound reason for this, this is done just to dissuade users. Turning on Developer Mode means exposing a whole bunch of other things that most users will never want enabled.

And there is more...

@besendorf @fdroidorg @lennybacon @breakdownthewalls @AwetTesfaiesus It is important to be clear what "Android" is. CalyxOS, LineageOS, GrapheneOS, Waydroid etc. are not Android. Google controls what can be called Android quite tightly and they set a huge number of requirements, many NDAed and not public, before something can be called Android. They defend this with lots of lawyers. AOSP is still open source and AOSP-derivatives can be Android-compatible. But Google is closing Android itself

Age bans are popular https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-europeans-support-social-media-ban-minors/

How would you convert that into support for cracking down on Big Tech? Seems a tough story to tell.

@POLITICOEurope @politico-media-POLITICOEurope
This take reads a bit like "regulating social media won't work so we should instead regulate social media". I agree badly implemented age bans will not work, or might make things worse. As much as I support the DMA, its effect is quite limited. And that's the best we've got against Big Tech

@LilahTovMoon For Brexit, it seems fair that leaving the EU required the same size majority as joining. The Common Market referendum of 1975 required a simple majority, also in parliament.

@ondra People like Apple iOS because of the smooth integrated UX. That's only possible when using lots of native apps. And iOS users spend most of their time in native apps. The web app UX is still second rate, even when massive companies like Google and Microsoft pour resources in. Web apps provide their own lock-in effects, for Google especially, since they have so much control over the browser.

@ondra

* Google clearly pushed out desktop office apps, so much so that Microsoft had to switch to web apps.
* Google also dominates the development of browsers, with Microsoft and Apple being notable players.
* Amazon is the dominate player in hosting web apps.
* Facebook drives the development of lots of key web app frameworks.

Without Big Tech there would be no web apps.

#Native #apps have inherent advantages over #web apps, yet an open web is important. #Gatekeepers are abusing its openness. Web apps dominance on #desktop looks like an effect of the gatekeepers pushing for that. Web apps are pushed by #BigTech: #Google #Apple #Facebook #Amazon, partly as a way to break #Microsoft #Windows's dominance. Its good to break Windows' dominance, but now, Big Tech web apps serve as new gatekeepers.

#Government and #military leaders right now are talking a lot about how they need to prepare for the threats they are facing from other countries. But what they basically never talk about is how their own military #buildup makes other countries feel threatened. From what I've seen, this applies everywhere no matter which side they are on. That looks like a clear path to more war. They should be considering #deescalation is also a proven method for avoiding #war, not only #deterrence.

@esplovago @fdroidorg If you would like to see an f-droid.org mirror in Italy, then you can help! One approach is to find a well known mirror for Debian, Ubuntu, etc and ask them to also mirror f-droid.org. You can point them to our docs about how to get setup. Then to coordinate with F-Droid, open an issue in https://gitlab.com/fdroid/admin/-/work_items/

Another case of the #AI #bubble in action: insane #VC funding to create things that corrode the internet and public sphere and that people don't actually really want. #OpenAI's #Sora is no more! It was very expensive to run with hardly any paying customers.

https://www.revolutioninai.com/2026/03/%20chatgpt-gpt-54-mini-silent-switch-march-2026.html

"If that holds at scale, the “#AI coding boom” is not a #productivity #revolution. It is a #debt-acceleration loop wrapped in excellent #UX."

https://medium.com/write-a-catalyst/an-ai-wrote-576-000-lines-to-replace-sqlite-7ea538826d72

#TechnicalDebt #Claude #ClaudeCode #LLM

Well, this is one way to get out of #NaturalGas and #oil 😂 Looks like #Iran, #Israel and the #US are going to blow it all up 😉 Sorry, the #IranWar is all so messed up and sad, I just have to make a stupid joke about it.

Watching two party politics like #Democrat vs #Republican in the #US, it seems like an endless game of "he said she said". With multi-party politics, there are more possibilities. When three differing opposition parties get together to have a hearing to hold the government to account, that sends a pretty clear message that is not possible in two party politics.

Democrats have a hearing, Republics say its just politics. Or vice versa. Then stalemate.
For example:
https://abcnews.com/Politics/follow-law-bondi-after-democrats-storm-epstein-files/story?id=131199517

Hey #Europe, check out how #Sanchez and the #Socialist party in #Spain stood up against
the #IranWar, ignored threats from #Trump, so far received no meaningful retaliation and improved their standing in the latest #elections.

https://www.politico.eu/article/pedro-sanchez-socialist-party-defeat-regional-election-castilla-y-leon-spain/