This is a really interesting battle of platform vs proprietary business going on here. Is Youtube a platform? If so, then it should be offered to everyone equally. That's almost the definition of a platform. But is it actually a proprietary business that operates purely in the interests of its owner? In that case it should be offered to whoever makes money for the owner. If you are a content creator, Youtube tries very hard to look like a platform. But if you are a business that wants to make money from showing the content - Youtube looks like a proprietary business.
Lots of companies are trying to have it both ways these days. Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google too - all want to say, "hey, here we have a platform, you can come and develop here and make money without prejudice". But at the same time they all want to say, "we make the rules, we decide who wins, who loses and who's in and who's out and have no obligation to be fair about it".
Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft would get heavily criticised for using "secret" windows APIs in office. Not that they didn't. But there was a general consensus that it was highly unfair for MS to have access to APIs that others didn't.
These days this resistance has been broken down by companies like Apple and Facebook, offering incredibly attractive "platforms" but without the guarantees that a platform used to have. Would anybody complain now that Apple uses a private API on the iPhone that 3rd party developers don't have access to? These days people virtually insist on it, for security, if nothing else.
So to me this is one more aspect of this long and winding battle between companies that want to have it all - pretend to offer "open" platforms but keep the reigns under their control. And they are all guilty.
> Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft
When you say "screamed murder", do you mean that people got huffy about it on the Internet? That's still the case. Exhibit A: your comment.
Did you mean "antitrust lawsuits used to be filed about it?" A random sampling of any paragraph in the actual court decision should convince you that the situation is not comparable to today:
> Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world- wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. - U.S. v. Microsoft, Findings of Fact
If at some point Apple's share of the phone market, or even of the ARM-based phone market, exceeds 90 percent, over a period of a decade--by all means, let's file a lawsuit about it.
I think you're conflating two fundamentally different meanings of the word "platform" here, which is important because the two are almost diametrically opposed. YouTube is a platform for content providers to distribute and monetize their videos. They are not a platform for video application development which harms the intended users of their platform - the content providers - by wrecking their monetization strategies.
Sweet mother of god, what a move to pull. Well played. Looks like Microsoft is pulling the same hand, as Google did with EAS some months ago. Also considering MS has been asking for Google's help since 2010. Brilliantly done.
It actually is very interesting move to pull. The reply is just so elegant, it is beautiful. They were being strangled by Google, there are no Google apps on MS platforms (WP or OS). And on a day of Larry Page's rheotoric about being friendly to each other. This is Oh Snap moment.
@cma: No. Metro apps cannot be sideloaded if you are not a Dev. Tell me a store which does not take a cut? Steam, iOS, Nook, Amazon, Play store? Besides, Google's apps on iOS are free.
I've been off all microsoft products for a long time, but I think I might be willing to give their phone a try. I'm not completely sold on android or apple at the moment, and Msoft's design does seem to be taking the lead (flat ui), and presenting a different option . Plus, before the android/ios wars, I always thought Nokia made the most brilliant phones, and i'm kinda glad to see them back in the game.
I've had a Windows Phone (Lumia 920) for a few months now and probably would never go back. Sure, some apps are missing from the ecosystem, but I rarely use apps so maybe that's just me.
The integration, slick performance, and interface really are streets ahead of Android in my opinion and I was a daily android flasher for over 2 years.
If apps are your thing though, make sure enough of them are there to keep you happy.
If you want a phone that syncs your data to the cloud without your permission, WP is perfect. Android's also very good at this, but if you have lots of time and some skills you can root it and probably fix the issue.
I see. Are you absolutely sure? Did you do anything special?
The only hack that I know is setting the server to 127.0.0.1 in the people hub so that it doesn't sync. I have seen multiple official statements from MS that this is not supported and the syncing is mandatory.
Could you provide a link or guide on how to disable sync'ing in MS Office and for the contacts? Thanks.
Perfect example of stacking the deck in your favour. If Google says no, they look like hypocrites who aren't practising what they preach. Very gutsy move Microsoft, well played.
No, it's actually pretty silly of Microsoft. They're blatantly disregarding YouTube's TOS by allowing users to download videos within the app - I'm just shocked this made it past Microsoft legal.
Microsoft has plenty to lose here. Push this too far and they can easily alienate the media partners they need for all sorts of things (like providing content for Windows tablets and Windows Phone).
Where did I say that ad-free YouTube was pushing this too far? I think both Microsoft and Google have plenty of ways to sort that out.
The download button, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish. If people start using Microsoft's Windows Phone YouTube app to download and distribute YouTube video I think that will have tons of impact, way beyond the existing, lower-profile downloaders, no matter how tiny WP's adoption is.
The legal answer is that the Supreme Court has treated anything written by a corporation on a sheet of paper as a holy scripture (Citizen United, Monsanto, the class action suits waivers) so chances are it will be - they can do whatever they want.
The ethical answer is that when a company becomes of a certain size it happens to be a part of the national infrastructure so they should give FRAND access to their services.
Isn't Microsoft released an ad(scroogled) some days ago attacking Google that they track users. So now Microsoft doesn't have any problem if Google track Microsoft users.
What a move... now if this only worked on movie companies.
Host a bunch of infringing works, and when the takedown notice come, say that you are "more than happy" to pay license fee. The only thing one need is to get the same access and license deal that netflix got. Anything else would be unfair.
It's quite likely that they're only "more than happy" to include advertising if they can also reap some profits from the ads shown to their "mutual customers". (Why else would you word it that way?)
"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."
Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):
"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".
Also, I see this post being flagged a lot, stay classy, Google fans on HN.
I imagine that there is a great deal of YouTube content which Google is obligated to revenue share advertising money on (Vevo music videos, among other content) -- Google can't fulfill those obligations if those videos are showing up on WinMo without ads.
Today's remarks about XMPP interop from Page really bother me. In the late 90s, Microsoft was the vendor that wanted interop/federation (on MSN) and nobody took them up on it either.
>Google can't fulfill those obligations if those videos are showing up on WinMo without ads.
The mobile YouTube site that Google serves to Windows Phone devices does not display any ads. Therefore an ad-free app for WP does nothing to change the situation that WP users don't see ads on YouTube.
Now, it is possible that some of Google's content is licensed in such a way that only their mobile site is exempt from displaying ads while any native apps are not. However, a C&D hardly seems like the proper course of action here, given that Microsoft says they are willing to display Google's ads.
The mobile YouTube site that Google serves to Windows Phone devices presumably doesn't play videos that are marked as unavailable on mobile, whereas Microsoft's app apparently ignores that flag and plays them anyway.
Google is the new Microsoft. All this "Don't do evil" bullshit is just another illusion to sell more ads. That's all Google has ever been and ever will be. A fucking Ad company. Over 97% of their revenues prove that. If they can't plaster ads on your shit and sell your data, expect a nice big blue, red, yellow and green fuck you.
The ranking in the front page is affected by flagging. Usually, the more points a post has and the more recent it is, the higher it is ranked. But flagging pushes it down. So if you see a 100 point post submitted 10 hours ago above a 150 point post submitted 6 hours ago, it means that the 150 point post got flagged a lot.
Also, I see this post being flagged a lot, stay classy, Google fans on HN.
Or, perhaps there are those of us who see the ensuing flame war on this particular stream of non-ending google vs microsoft cage match flame wars and don't want to see them any more.
I find it particularly interesting when people complain about the ActiveSync thing. Did you know that Microsoft patented it, and Google has to pay a license for each user? I can entirely understand why they block it from Microsoft devices if they are also forced to pay a license for them.
I don't have an issue with them pulling it, but they did it suddenly and gave MS very less time for a workaround and increased the time only after public shaming.
MS implemented CardDAV and CalDAV standards as Google wanted, and as part of spring cleaning round 2, those are deprecated and replaced with their own proprietary new API!
> MS implemented CardDAV and CalDAV standards as Google wanted
Not in any released product, they haven't. The update is expected "later this summer"[1] and, as you certainly know, CalDAV isn't being deprecated or replaced, you just need to get whitelisted to access it. They could certainly use that to shut out Microsoft, but there's been no indication that that's been done, and we would certainly have heard a leak about it by now if they had been...
I doubt it was suddenly, though of course I am just spinning conjecture: What I imagined happened is that Google told Microsoft that it's kind of ridiculous that they have to pay an ActiveSync license for Microsoft devices (which could have used other APIs...but wouldn't you know it Microsoft chose the one that made them even more money), some negotiating happened, Microsoft said stuff it, so Google pulled ActiveSync. It is truly a ridiculous situation that Google has to pay Microsoft to provide services to Microsoft users.
I'm no Google apologist (Page's statements about lets all work together etc were utterly ridiculous. I understand that he probably actually believes what he was saying, not realizing the destruction they lay in their wake), but Microsoft almost always has a nasty stink coming off of their complaints.
Looks like this submission is getting flagged as well. I guess this story really isn't showing Google is good light if Google fans are in such heavy damage control mode. It looks like they have a veto on what appears on the HN front page.
Look, you may not like Microsoft and even its response but why try to bury a legitimate news item? Are there not enough Google I/O posts related stories topping the the front page?
Can anyone who flagged this and the other related stories come out and tell us why they feel the need to abuse their moderator privileges?
From the HN guidelines:
"If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.)"
Looks like PG didn't guess that people with good karma will want to abuse it to bury stories they don't want others to see in such a constant way.
Hacker News removes users' ability to flag articles if they abuse it. Just for shits and giggles I am going to perform an experiment: every time someone shrilly declares that MS articles are being mercilessness flagged by upset Google employees, I am going to flag the article as well.
My money is on my flagging ability not remaining intact for very long.
And how will that be a good experiment at all with one data point? Are you trying to find out the criteria of how they decide to remove the ability? I do not think it is limited to MS articles only.
Obviously it cannot be a good experiment. It is for shits and giggles.
I never bother to flag anymore, if I manage to have the ability removed by only flagging MS articles over the next few days then I am going to take that as a mild indication that all of the people whining about MS posts being flagged really just have persecution complexes and are not actually onto anything. If I don't have the ability removed, that suggests nothing at all.
The flagging ability is removed if you do a lot of flagging in a very short time, like the poster who didn't like all Steve Jobs posts on front page when he passed away and flagged them all and lost his flagging ability.
Microsoft related articles don't show up that frequently to cause that, especially because people don't even bother submitting them because 1. they don't get upvotes(because of HN's makeup) 2. If they happen to get upvotes they're flagged by overzealous Microsoft haters.
Anyway, if you think I am misguided, what's the alternative explanation of this and every other instance of such things? I am genuinely curious.
Why would someone want to flag a review of the Surface Pro review from Anandtech of all places? Note that a new Chromebook announcement was #1 for all day on that day.
Want to see more instances of such mod abuse?
A user complaining about this happening to Apple related stories as well.
Besides disagreeing that what you have shown is evidence of systematic underhanded flagging of MS related posts, I am at a complete loss as to how you figure that the mods are perpetrating some sort of abuse.
Also, whether or not you get your flagging privileges revoked is, among other factors, a function of how popular the things that you are flagging are. That is why you can flag spam on 'new' all day long to your heart's content but one hour of flagging a dozen or two "Steve Jobs died" posts will see you unable to flag almost immediately.
>Also, whether or not you get your flagging privileges revoked is, among other factors, a function of how popular the things that you are flagging are. That is why you can flag spam on 'new' all day long to your heart's content but one hour of flagging a dozen or two "Steve Jobs died" posts will see you unable to flag almost immediately.
Where did you gather this from, since you aren't banned from flagging?
Also, since you seem to be quite knowledgeable about HN's system, instead of just "disagreeing", could you enlighten us a few few ways other than flagging that all those posts in the screenshots are ranked lower than other older posts with less points?
Right now this story is like this:
101 points by CloudNine 4 hours ago | 46 comments
Yet it sits at #25, far below other posts with less points. What can cause that?
> Where did you gather this from, since you aren't banned from flagging?
In addition to this just being common knowledge, I had a HN account prior to this one that I retired when I decided that I wanted to have an account nominally connected to my external identity (it was not hellbanned). This account had it's flagging privileges revoked after I flagged a handful of Steve Jobs death stories.
> Also, since you seem to be quite knowledgeable about HN's system, instead of just "disagreeing", could you enlighten us a few few ways other than flagging that all those posts in the screenshots are ranked lower than other older posts with less points?
I have no inside knowledge into this, however it is my suspicion that vote velocity and comment section quality are factored into rank.
This would explain how highly controversial stories that undoubtedly had excessive flagging (I am thinking specifically of several of the "gender politics" themed stories we have had here in the past) have often managed to hang onto the top spot for unusual amounts of time. They had many high-quality comments.
Frankly the points and number of comments on those allegedly "flagged to death" Microsoft articles are pretty low. I can easily see small differences in voting velocity and comment quality accounting for the slightly lower rank on the page.
Is it possible that flagging is causing the phenomenon that you are seeing? Sure, it might be that. But I do not think that it is the only plausible explanation (or even the most plausible.)
If PG chimed in on this, there would be no reason to speculate.
Thanks for the post, but have to disgree on some points. the differences aren't small, they're quite big when you realize that ranking makes a huge difference to how many people see it and how many more new votes it gets, especially if it goes off the front page.
Adding more data for perusal. HN rankings charts show abnormal behavior too, because all the complaining led to more upvotes or it would've fallen off the front page.
So now it isn't just Microsoft posts that are getting flagged, but everything not Google? Give me a break, that will absolutely get your flagging privileges revoked, and quickly.
Does it really surprise you that Google is receiving large amounts of exposure today? Really?
Edit: Apologies, I assumed your intentions poorly.
Ah. I get it. I get it. Google data centre post has less points than this one, but is on the main page and so is the .net one, which i guess is anti-MS one. Thank you for the explanation.
Well, all I can say is that some Google fans, employees and shareholders seem to be just like Google, espouse openness etc. but be the first to quell free speech if it shows their company in a bad way. And there are a lot of such folks on here and looks like they form a Digg-style bury brigade.
Lots of companies are trying to have it both ways these days. Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google too - all want to say, "hey, here we have a platform, you can come and develop here and make money without prejudice". But at the same time they all want to say, "we make the rules, we decide who wins, who loses and who's in and who's out and have no obligation to be fair about it".
Once upon a time people screamed murder when a platform company started weaving its own interests directly into its platform. For example, Microsoft would get heavily criticised for using "secret" windows APIs in office. Not that they didn't. But there was a general consensus that it was highly unfair for MS to have access to APIs that others didn't.
These days this resistance has been broken down by companies like Apple and Facebook, offering incredibly attractive "platforms" but without the guarantees that a platform used to have. Would anybody complain now that Apple uses a private API on the iPhone that 3rd party developers don't have access to? These days people virtually insist on it, for security, if nothing else.
So to me this is one more aspect of this long and winding battle between companies that want to have it all - pretend to offer "open" platforms but keep the reigns under their control. And they are all guilty.