Building a more private web: A path towards making third party cookies obsolete - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2020/01/building-more-private-web-path-towards.html <comment><USER2> Yes this will have a great negative impact for Google's adtech competitors who unlike Google do not have other means to spy on users such as Chrome, search engine, Accelerated Mobile Pages, Gmail, voice assistant and so on.

But Google really has no choice here due to aggressive campaign by Mozilla, Apple and Microsoft who boast with their Intelligent Tracking Prevention ( [https://webkit.org/blog/8828/intelligent-tracking- prevention...](https://webkit.org/blog/8828/intelligent-tracking- prevention-2-2/) ) implementation blaming Google as a company which does not value users privacy. Google would lose privacy-conscious users otherwise.

But it is clear for me how all this anti-thirdparty cookies situation will go further: server side third party ad trackers -- this will bypass Same Origin Policy and will pose a privacy and security threat for users and websites even more than todays third party frontend ad trackers.

<comment><USER3> The issue with server side 3rd party ads is that the advertiser has no way to assure the impressions are real.

<comment><USER4> From the advertiser's perspective, that's a problem.

From my perspective, good. Advertising is toxic even when it's not invading my privacy, and maybe if we make it less effective people will do less of it.

<comment><USER5> Reality leans the other way. What eill likely happen is that sites that used to make 100k a year from ads see their revenue drop to 70k then 50k then 30k. To stay afloat they plaster more and worse ads in order to survive.

This is exactly what happened during the first dot com crash when we went from $35 CPM banner ads to $1. Suddenly, ads were slathered on every page or websites simply disappeared. What we really need is a deal that works well for all three parties: advertisers, consumers and content providers. Google Adsense was this perfect solution for a while (until it got optimized to max profitability).

Maybe online advertising is like social networks and can only enjoy brief moments of relative balance before the cycle starts anew.

<comment><USER6> People easily forget the days of punch the monkey and x10 ads

<comment><USER7> Did those companies go out of business? An ad company in its death throws is going to be annoying right up until someone puts it out of its misery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this is an easy move for Google, it's a "strategy credit" as Ben Thompson would put it.

Google already knows most of what it needs about you, and it will in the future from searches. It has no motivation to allow 3rd parties help in tracking visitors. This way it can build a moat around its business while pretending to care about privacy. It's bullshit.

<comment><USER9> Google's reason for wanting this is bullshit, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be a beneficial move in general.

<comment><USER10> The beneficial move would be for Chrome to accept the industry-standard choice of letting users easily block all tracking and fingerprinting... including Google's.

But that wouldn't be good for Google. This is the exact reason an ad company should not be allowed to own a web browser.

<comment><USER11> But... they are going to not just allow users, but per default, block 3rd party cookies?

Edit: comment was either edited, or I'm going senile. In any case: Chrome does allow blocking all cookies as well, and has from the first release. Fingerprinting isn't easily avoided, but they have taken some steps to make it harder.

<comment><USER10> It's edited, sorry! I felt it was important to clarify that the general Privacy Sandbox concept they are promoting is designed and built around allowing data collection about users that can be used for ad targeting, whether it utilizes third party cookies explicitly or not.

Note that blocking all cookies breaks the web, blocking third party cookies breaks adtech. It's important to note that even if Chrome has supported the former, it has resisted implementing the latter.

Meanwhile, Firefox, Edge, and Safari have chosen to implement tracking prevention, which has the goal of preventing any ad targeting towards a given user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, blunt > approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques ...

This is disingenuous. Reducing tracking does _not_ undermine websites. It undermines advertisers that depend on tracking. If tracking stopped, advertisers would target something else (e.g. content or coarse location) and roughly the same amount of money would go to websites. Google's privileged position would be a lot less inherently valuable, though.

</comment><comment><USER13> >By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, blunt approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques such as fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can actually reduce user privacy and control.

Sure. So how about we block fingerprinting? Oh waaaaaait I see. What you actually want is your privacy invading business model to not be impacted.

Why are sites able to ascertain the type of browser, operating system, OS version, webkit version, Safari version, time zone, language, platform, vendor, screen dimensions, plugins, etc.

This shit should be as locked down as location, web cam, and microphone. Block all of it.

<comment><USER14> You'll end up trying to read a news article in a foreign language, that looks like a mobile website, has 1000px headline and can't be navigated because some of the functionality is broken.

<comment><USER13> Nonsense. You can write a perfectly modern and beautiful site without any JS at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have disabled 3rd party cookies in my browser for about a year now. My experience has been fine, I have had very few issues with things that I care about, no whitelist and not had to re-enable them yet.

<comment><USER16> I've been blocking 3rd party cookies for many years. It doesn't cause any issues for 99.9% of sites. I think I've encountered less than 10 and I whitelisted the ones I needed.

<comment><USER17> Same here. Web sites that block content because of a lack of third-party cookie support are pretty rare. I ran into one last week and was so surprised by the message it took me a few seconds to realize was happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Users are demanding greater privacy--including transparency, choice and > control over how their data is used--and it's clear the web ecosystem needs > to evolve to meet these increasing demands. Some browsers have reacted to > these concerns by blocking third-party cookies, but we believe this has > unintended consequences that can negatively impact both users and the web > ecosystem. By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, > blunt approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques such as > fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can > actually reduce user privacy and control. We believe that we as a community > can, and must, do better.

The Webkit team already proposed a privacy-preserving way to do ad click attribution [1]. I'm guessing that was too private and Privacy Sandbox works better for Google.

[1] [https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click- att...](https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-attribution- for-the-web/)

</comment><comment><USER19> In the past Chrome has played fast and loose with standards and features, which was fine for them since Firefox and friends needed to adopt them lest they widen the "Only works on Chrom(e/ium)" gap.

I wonder how removing a feature might go, however. The answer is "probably well because Chrome has overwhelming market share", but I do wonder if, between AMP and "no URLs" and no 3rd party cookies, if there's room for a small but growing "it just works how I'd expect it to on Firefox" contingent to spring up...

<comment><USER20> "only works in chrome" == "not going to use" for me and all any company/team where I have influence over software dependencies/tools. Same goes for "only works on one target" software in general though, usually means something is under tested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This will break a lot of auth0 jwt/login default integrations since it depends on 3rd party cookies.

<comment><USER22> This. Mozilla got the right tactics by making them session lived by default. Completely banning them will only break stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's a short summary of some of the features proposed for the Privacy Sandbox here - [https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for- privacy...](https://blog.chromium.org/2019/08/potential-uses-for-privacy- sandbox.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> This will hurt the ad-tech businesses and websites/publishers who rely on third-party ads/targeting much more than it will hurt Google (and Facebook).

Still, Google's revenue on third-party site ads was $6.4bn in Q3 of 2019 out of the $40.5bn in total revenue so it could be felt a bit there too.

I fear that it all will move to first-party tracking though which will be so much more difficult to block and so much more dangerous in terms of security.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hard to read this and extract facts. My sense that this article is intentionally vague.

<comment><USER26> Tl;Dr:

> [...] we plan to phase out support for third-party cookies in Chrome. Our > intention is to do this within two years [...]

As for what they're replacing them with, sounds like they don't quite know yet. They seem to still be in the requirements gathering phase: [https://github.com/w3c/web-advertising](https://github.com/w3c/web- advertising)

<comment><USER27> Browser storage just to name one, cookies are really not too important.

With WebAssembly now.. And your company being one of _the_ leading browsers.. The cookie transport looks like pigeon mail.

<comment><USER26> They're not getting rid of cookies; just third-party cookies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If anyone from Google is reading this, the new SameSite policies coming to Chrome 80 are breaking "Login with Google" functionality. I opened an issue here: [https://github.com/google/google-api-javascript- client/issue...](https://github.com/google/google-api-javascript- client/issues/592)

</comment><comment><USER29> The arms race moves to its next phase.

I'm not sure this will accomplish much as it's not that hard to serve things from one's own domain. More work for the tracking company to get things set up, I suppose, but harder to detect once established.

</comment><comment><USER30> So now ad companies will just require a CNAME entry in the website's DNS record.

<comment><USER31> And how do they link these between different websites?

<comment><USER32> Server-side magic – fingerprinting, behavioural detection, referer GET stubs, etc.. It's not all that difficult, though it _is_ harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For privacy conscious users who have blocked third party cookies for years, this may make evading tracking ever more complicated.

My guess is we will need custom GreaseMonkey scripts that prevent parameters from being appended to URLs so when you click on a link to another site it will not pass tracking information. Generally whenever a tracking network changes these parameters the Greasemonkey scripts will have to be updated whereas in the past you could just block the third party cookies and avoid a lot of the tracking.

</comment><comment><USER27> There have been articles recently which are claiming the value of those cookies are not as valuable as before because the majority of them are avoided/altered to obfuscate to the requester.

So I see this as a : 'Hey we got in before everyone and stopped using cookies first' — When in reality, they're becomming less of a valuable commoddity.

I'll be very happy when companies stop storing excess info in their own storage.

Until then, no round of applause from me .

<comment><USER34> > _I 'll nurse a semi_

What? Care to explain for a non-native speaker / non-US based reader?

<comment><USER27> Updated, as a non native speaker, it's really not an expression you _should_ learn!

<comment><USER11> It's sexual, and therefore probably not a good expression to _use_ unless you know what you are doing.

But it's a somewhat eloquent term, in a way.

(It refers to getting sexually aroused, but only mildly)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What about single-sign-on stuff? What about iframe widgets where you are logged in?? Will there be a way to choose to keep being logged in, in iOS and Android? Or will everything become stateless and dumb?

<comment><USER36> They can use redirect flows and POST back to the page you're logging in to. It will be fine for most Auth flows (but not eg SAML passive logins)

<comment><USER31> Why can't they do this for ads?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py a large chunk of G's business is first-party ads, i.e. in their own SERP vs on someone else's inventory

interesting to see if that's the future. certainly anyone with substantial inventory has experimented with this (NYT for example) because they suspect they're getting cheating by G/FB

</comment><comment><USER16> This is so two-faced. This is the key line:

> Once these approaches have addressed the needs of users, publishers, and > advertisers, and we have developed the tools to mitigate workarounds…

A browser vendor that cared about its users would make a browser for them, not publishers or advertisers. It would block all tracking garbage by default.

Just admit it Justin, the real Chrome customers are advertisers. You don't actually give a shit about users if it interferes with ad dollars.

Edit: I left out this good quote

> Some ideas include new approaches to ensure that ads continue to be relevant > for users

More user-hostile advertiser appeasement.

<comment><USER2> It is not that easy.

Consider Mozilla, the privacy maniacs. Even they let proprietary and intrusive DRM plugin inside, though it is totally contradicts FOSS approach [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7746585](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7746585)

This is life -- you have to take other parties interests into account or you will be buried.

Start block all tracking garbage by default and sites will ban your users, forcing them to choose another product.

Speaking about Google: when you're (unlike Apple) making most of your revenue from ads, any hostile action to ad industry will be considered hypocrisy and unfair competition

<comment><USER37> Privacy and ethics around proprietary software, while obviously related (in that open software is obviously more transparent), are largely orthogonal. You can have closed/proprietary software that respects privacy (Apple), and you can have open software that doesn't (Chrome).

This just smells of whataboutism.

As for your hypothesis that websites will start blocking browsers that ban tracking and so forth, frankly, that remains to be seen, and my bet is we'd never actually see that happen in practice. The optics are just too toxic. Surveillance capitalism survives because people don't know it's happening. Banning a browser like Firefox would call attention to an infrastructure and ecosystem that those individuals don't want to talk about in public.

Edit: As an aside, if sites _did_ start banning privacy-conscious browsers like Firefox, I'd just stop going to those sites. In that respect, I'd actually perversely appreciate something like this: It'd finally make it blatantly obvious who is and isn't collecting and profiting from data about me and my actions online without my permission.

<comment><USER38> > As for your hypothesis that websites will start blocking browsers that ban > tracking and so forth, frankly, that remains to be seen, and my bet is we'd > never actually see that happen in practice.

The result of the GDPR regulAtions resulted in a moderate number of us websites refusing access to EU residents rather than attempt to comply. I think it's an entirely reasonably assumption that said sites would block a browser which attempted a similar idea

<comment><USER37> As I said in my edit: I'm actually fine with that (though I stand by my skepticism that it'd actually happen), as it's a clear and unambiguous signal that tells me which sites respect my privacy and which ones don't.

<comment><USER39> California now has a low that is similar to the EU law in many ways, and other states will soon, so those sites will soon have to block Americans as well, based on where they live if they can determine it, and soon they'll have to just give up and follow the law.

<comment><USER37> You're talking about CCPA, and I completely agree, GDPR-style privacy regimes are clearly the way the regulatory world is moving. It's just a matter of time at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> You care about users privacy? Judging by how passive aggressively Google tries to prevent us actually logging out of a Google Account, you are having a laugh.

</comment><comment><USER41> Good riddance. Unfortunately (almost) all our conversations - verbal and text messaging - are being spied on to target us with ads right now.

Addressing anything else is like pissing in the ocean to change it's colour.

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks like safari gave them no choice, so now they grab this as an opportunity to say the want to do it too.

<comment><USER43> Hasn't safari always defaulted to no 3rd party cookies?

<comment><USER44> As I understand it:

No. Rather, Safari uses "Intelligent Tracking Prevention". This blocks SOME (most?) 3rd Party cookies, but not all. For example, single sign on providers will often use cookies, and they are often explicitly 3rd party. ITP tries to let those through.

IIRC Safari can be set to block ALL 3rd party cookies, but it is not the default setting.

SSO providers don't NEED cookies, they can do full page redirects to avoid being 3rd party, but it does complicate matters, and the relationship between you, a site, and a 3rd party identity provider you've presumably agreed to can be a different beast than the tracking cookies that are the focus here, though of course identity providers could always join the dark side as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I believe they'll just be using the QUIC protocol and IPv6 to track users instead.

<comment><USER45> For the downnvoters that don't believe me, go read Brave Browser's research into this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's the classic regulatory capture move of pulling up the ladder behind you, only they don't need regulators to do it.

What's more, Firefox is just an off-brand of Google to capture the "privacy first" consumer market segment.

Doesn't mean I'm going to stop using Firefox, but it just helps to see the big picture.

</comment><comment><USER27> Another reason why Google's concern here for our privacy is nonsense is if we look here :

[https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention-policy/](https://webkit.org/tracking- prevention-policy/)

We can see, google doesn't need to inform their chrome users :

> A privileged third party is a party that has the potential to track the user > across websites without their knowledge or consent because of special access > built into the browser or operating system.

INOL but my understanding of this would put Google's Chrome into that bracket. Potentially also Microsoft/Apple ?</comment>


We're living in an Ayn Rand economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2013/05/18/were_living_in_an_ayn_rand_economy_partner/

<comment><USER2> So we're living in an economy with no regulations, enabled by a strong but limited government dedicated to protecting the individual rights of its citizens and absolutely nothing more?

The author is so far off the mark here, that I'll stop with two charts that show that we don't have anything close to an unregulated economy.

As a proxy for the size of our economy's regulatory burden, here's a chart showing the length of the federal register, in pages: [http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/de...](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/default/files/u43/2014-3_FR%20pages_webimage2013.jpg)

Here's a chart showing the inflation-adjusted budget spent just on _administering_ those regulations: [http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/de...](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/sites/default/files/u43/Budgetary%20Cost%20of%20federal%20regulation%2C%20gwu.jpg)

Here's the context for both of those charts: [http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/regstats](http://research.columbian.gwu.edu/regulatorystudies/regstats)

</comment><comment><USER3> I can only presume the author hasn't actually read any of Rand's writing. Either that or this is an intentional smear piece.

<comment><USER4> Salon is well known for intentional smear pieces (against Rand and others)

EDIT: Not that I want to draw attention to hackery, but here is another example: [http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_rand_is_for_children/](http://www.salon.com/2013/01/19/ayn_rand_is_for_children/)

<comment><USER3> Right, that makes sense. I'm totally okay with strongly-worded debate over Rand's philosophy; she was (intentionally) inflammatory in a lot of cases. But Salon's piece was ... well ... so much of a strawman that I really didn't understand how the author could characterise Rand's work in that way.</comment></comment></comment>


Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office has new tactical armored vehicle - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_16936952

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not cool to post this here, but I got a "LOLWUT" out of this. I'm trying to imagine what they need this for. Crowd control at 1 Infinite Loop store?</comment>


Why Procrastinators Procrastinate (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html <comment><USER2> I have long been following this topic. Here are the most promising explanations I have found so far. Why do Procrastinators Procrastinate?

\- perfectionism: when the person is not satisfied with anything she makes

\- fear of success: because success can bring about unpleasant attention and undesired comparisons

\- temporal discounting: gaining 200 in one year is worth less than spending the 100 right now

\- impulsivity: I feel an urge to run away from work and I allow it to rule me every time

\- bad odds for success: sometimes it's smarter to give up, when the probability of success becomes too small

\- overwhelmed: trying to do too much, having too many balls in the air is stressful

\- seeking more creativity: sometimes procrastination is in fact thinking time and searching for inspiration</comment>


Larry Ellison wins Americas Cup sailing trophy - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/it-business/sme/news/index.cfm?newsid=18890 <comment><USER2> I hope the Basho, 10Gen and other alternative database companies make a dent into Oracle's marketshare.

They'll need seamless integration with other technologies that provide complete solutions, because that's what Oracle now sells, and that sales strategy is working.

</comment><comment><USER3> This item is much better. Photos, more descriptions, more text, just, generally better.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1125346>

</comment><comment><USER4> Now I know what you're paying for when you buy Oracle's database products.

<comment><USER5> I had a lot of investment of time in learning Oracle database and tools. I made an XL freeware addon which accessed Oracle database using OO4O, built an application using Oracle designer CASE tool, learned PLSQL in detail (and built SQL Plus Plus).

But the feeling of being controlled by a big corp was so strong that finally I left Oracle world and embraced open source; Perl, PostgreSQL.

I can now build better solutions in less time and still find time to browse HN many times a day.

My customers were few small to medium sized businesses so I could dictate technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Whatever you think of Oracle the company or Oracle the product, you have to admire what Larry has accomplished. Especially considering his humble origins, if Wikipedia is to be believed.</comment>


Awesome WebKit inspector trick - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+MatiasPiipari/posts/RanQWQ6NtN4

<comment><USER2> Aww man, there are so many times I've needed to do this. I don't know why I never thought of "copy response" as copying the body of the document...

For those who don't know, "Copy as cURL" is equally cool: it gives you a curl command you can cut and paste in your terminal to emulate what Chrome just did (so nice for dealing with tricky cookies and authentication).</comment>


PostgreSQL: Backend Flowchart - <AUTHOR> https://www.postgresql.org/developer/backend/ <comment><USER2> If you're looking for something with similar information to consume passively, check out Bruce Momjian's fairly detailed talk on Postgres internals:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFh22atXTRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFh22atXTRQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> My god, the table join optimizer can use a genetic algorithm. Fascinating. I would not have thought an SQL database would have a need for such an algorithm!

<comment><USER4> [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Backend_flowchart#optimizer...](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Backend_flowchart#optimizer_geqo)

 _Genetic query optimizer optimizer /path evaluates all possible ways to join the requested tables. When the number of tables becomes great, the number of tests made becomes great too. The Genetic Query Optimizer considers each table separately, then figures the most optimal order to perform the join. For a few tables, this method takes longer, but for a large number of tables, it is faster. There is an option to control when this feature is used._

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I haven't seen a map tag in ages, and this seems like a proper use of it!

<comment><USER6> Given that the image here looks like it was generated from a .dot file, though, it could have just-as-well been exported as an .svg, where the SVG flowchart-box nodes themselves would have the fragment links attached to them.

As it is, given the comment on how to hand-calculate new <area> coordinates embedded near the <map> on the page, I think they just used Graphvis to output a .gif rendering of the flowchart, and then went in and hand-wrote a separate HTML <map> on top of it. Quite a bit more work, and work that would have to be duplicated if you ever wanted to tweak and re-export the graph itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, that image GIF is such 90-ish design -- bright colors, awful unreadable fonts...

<comment><USER8> The vinn diagram of "people who understand PostgreSQL internals" and "people who are good at design" probably has a very small overlapped area.</comment></comment>


The Heyday of Software Easter Eggs Has Passed. - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pogue-use-it-better-secret-easter-egggs

<comment><USER2> Passed? Hardly. They've just moved to new audiences and platforms. Such as the Easter Egg in the Ookla/Speedtest.net smartphone apps.

Still, programs that are now mainstream, critical and trusted shouldn't have Easter Eggs in them. It would be unprofessional of me to put Easter Eggs into the telephony code I work with. Things that absolutely must work should be boring and without surprises.

</comment><comment><USER3> Passed? Loads of sites use the Konami code to activate easter eggs.</comment>


Ask HN: What does it take to run Hacker News smoothly? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> As a community, or as software?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mainly software and infrastructure, but also staffing. As in, what does Y Combinator as a company have to do to run the site?</comment></comment>


Why I WON'T switch to Linux for video production.. ever? (vide0) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpXUQgCbtQw <comment><USER2> The guy is wrong or not informed well on several things he objected on Linux video editing. Like Linux doesn't have support for SD cards filesystem? Actually that's quite opposite. Linux has superior support for different filesystems. In addition to classic exFat, NTFS, there is F2FS which only Android and Linux have (and many more). But to be fair, I need to mention that some of them could be slower than in other OS, due being user level rather than kernel level.</comment>


LendingClub Files for $500M IPO - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/27/lendingclub-files-for-500m-ipo/ <comment><USER3> I have had a LC account for about 4 years. The returns aren't that great, around 6%. I did some random loans of mixed interest rates, but have also applied my own set of filters which brought the rate up a little bit over the last year.

The notes are also not liquid. You will suffer huge losses if you need to sell. I thought this would mean that I could get other people's notes at deep discounts...typically sellers want to offload late notes to avoid a full loss. However, in my test of buying about 30 late notes, I discovered the real problem - if a borrower makes a payment on your note while the transaction is still "settling" (typically 24-48 hours after you purchase the note), the transaction is cancelled. You can't cancel the transaction during the settling period if no payment is made though. So, what ended up happening was I was building a portfolio of junk notes that defaulted 98% of the time - <USER2> advantage is definitely with the seller and I suspect that is why there is a huge lack of buyers on their platform.

<comment><USER4> 6% returns in a ZIRP environment are actually quite fantastic. Even junk bonds yield less than that.

<comment><USER5> But there is a market for junk bonds. You could exit your position today if you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A part of this article is false.

"LendingClub doesn't loan out its own capital and collects fees of loans that are originated on its platform from both individuals and more sophisticated investors alike."

Lending Club owns a subsidiary fund that invests in the platform as well.

Investors should be aware that LC is both a platform, and an investor in it's own platform which, if not monitored closely, can be potentially dangerous.

[Source] [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lending-club- announc...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lending-club-announces- additional-investment-in-lc-advisors-fund-from-peter-thomson-163005206.html)

<comment><USER7> I don't think it is. The subsidiary you are talking about LC Advisers isn't using LC's own capital. It is a vehicle that manages investments from institutional investors.

As LendingClub has grown it has transitioned from a purely P2P model where individuals made the majority of the loans to a whole loan model where banks and other accredited institutional investors make up the majority of the loaned capital. They still have the original platform but their growth isn't coming from Joe off the street it's coming from big banks etc... who see this as a cheaper way to do underwriting.

<comment><USER6> Agreed on the institutional side. However LC also invests in their own loans from time to time, both directly or through LC Advisers.

In the early days LC invested their own capital more heavily to make sure loans were fully funded, and to ensure the community was active enough.

This is why they have "funded_amnt" and "funded_amnt_inv" to denote how much of the loan was funded by investors vs. internally.

<comment><USER8> LC no longer invests any significant amount of own money in loans. See [https://www.peercube.com/blog/post/11](https://www.peercube.com/blog/post/11) for the analysis. IMO, it is negative that LC no longer has their own skin in the game as their interests are no longer aligned with lenders on their platform. Most of the recent policy changes, for example loosening the credit quality and charging lenders to pay for collection and charging lenders for first few days of interest to LC's loan originator, seem to reflect this dissociation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everyone I talk to has had good experiences with lending on lending club. Has anyone here had a bad experience?

<comment><USER10> I spent a lot of time handpicking my 200 investments and I'm sitting on a 12.23% (adjusted) return right now. I think by most measures, this would qualify as a good experience. For me though, it's not. When someone defaults on me (I've had 1 officially and 2 more that will likely get charged off soon) I feel bad about it. Yes, it's expected and yes, LC makes a reasonable amount of effort to collect but it doesn't help how I feel. Especially when the people filling out the loan application write things like, "I'm a hard worker. I always pay my loans back, etc, etc" As someone, that would never short change someone on money owed I feel very let down when it happens to me and I take it a little too personally. It also doesn't sit right with me that LC takes a cut of every payment but doesn't share the pain of losses in any way. What it boils down to, I suppose, is that LC is just not the right investment vehicle for me.

edit: correcting default stats.

<comment><USER5> How long have you held these notes? That seems like an exceptionally high return, and low default rate, unless this is like your first year.

<comment><USER10> I started in January of this year. It does seem high for sure. I'd like to think I spent a lot of time finding people that had the most to lose when making a decision (mortgage, relatively high income, stable job, etc) to lower my risk. But who knows.

edit: so i just checked for real. looks like it's been over a year (time flies). for the record, it shows 199 (instead of my stated 200) because i put $50 into one investment instead of the standard $25. [http://i.imgur.com/o2DdDLU.png](http://i.imgur.com/o2DdDLU.png)

<comment><USER5> > i put $50 into one investment instead of the standard $25

It's funny you mention that. I went through a phase where I started doing $50 and $100, becuase I couldn't find enough high quality borrowers. I figured that since I trusted these people with $25, why not a little more. It just hurts more when they default. When I see a high value note charged-off, I just feel more betrayed than usual.

<comment><USER7> I think that's one of the mistakes people make when investing in LC. The safety of the investment comes from having a small amount invested in a large number of notes. Until you are invested in 800+ notes you shouldn't be investing more than the minimum in any one note. If you look at LC's statistics on investor returns 800 notes seems to be the magic number to amortize the default risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been meaning to finish my LendingClub machine learning underwriter. There's a lot of data to train on since all historical loan data is available.

The exact model to use is tricky though. You could train a classifier to detect whether a loan will default or not, but this doesn't weigh the chance of default with the interest rate. I then thought of doing a regression on the expected return, which would properly balance between interest rate and default rate. At some point, though, you need to make the binary decision of whether to invest in the loan or not, again classification.

Another complication is that since LendingClub has been growing exponentially, the majority of the loans they've issued haven't matured yet. Utilizing this partially complete data is even more tricky. You could ignore non-mature loans, but that would reduce your training data significantly and make your data at least 3 years old.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've been investing in lending club for 4 years. Returns on different loan filters vary from 6%-13% on the high end. You're going to have defaults. When I try to explain this investment vehicle they look at me skeptically. Its a great place to invest risk capital as you'll get a semi decent return on your cash but I definitely wouldn't invest anything you can't stand losing. It will be interesting to see how the IPO turns out.

Check out lendingmemo.com and lendacademy.com for more insight on how to invest properly in the platform.

</comment><comment><USER8> I opened Lending Club account little less than 3 years ago. Lending Club reports my adjusted returns to be 9.91%. I currently have 300+ notes in my account though I usually sell notes that are underperforming on the secondary market typically at loss. I wouldn't invest any serious amount in LC as it is very new and unproven. Once LC becomes public, they most likely will start fleecing both borrowers and lenders to make its earnings/revenue numbers. The changes made this year are pretty indicative of this trend.

</comment><comment><USER13> I really like LendingClub. I was a bit mad at my default rate, as I followed stringent criteria, but I'm still sitting at 6.5%. I actually had someone die that I lended to and it really hit home with me for some reason.

The return isn't amazing, but I'm not doing anything else with that capital right now, and don't care to toss it in a different vehicle right now. It's fun to use for me.

<comment><USER14> Same here. I'm getting a 6.03% return. Low, for sure, but at least I get the feeling that I'm helping a few folks to borrow money, at rates and conditions that are more reasonable than with traditional banks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I believe once they IPO, they can accept lenders in all states (currently they only accept lenders in certain states).

</comment><comment><USER16> LendingClub reported $86.9 million of revenue in the first six months of the 2014, up 134 percent.

P2P is fundamentally shifting how people gets loans- banks should definitely be paying attention.

<comment><USER17> Banks don't really care about these types of loans. They do their unsecured individual lending through credit cards. At the retail level they are more concerned with mortgages, HELOC, high net worth individuals, and collateralized business lending.

<comment><USER7> Banks and institutional investors make up the majority of the money being loaned out. If you look at the S1 filing you will see that something like 80% of the money being loaned out isn't coming for individuals. It's coming from banks and institutions.

[http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php?topic=2612.msg225...](http://www.lendacademy.com/forum/index.php?topic=2612.msg22594#msg22594)

<comment><USER18> I agree - the notion that LendingClub is P2P is mostly PR hype. Sure an individual can put some capital to work. But most of their capital as pointed out above comes from institutions (mostly hedge funds). I had heard that 95% of their capital was institutional but I can't find a quote on that. P2P gets fantastic press tho and which in turn drives down new borrower acquisition cost.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The wave of unicorn IPOs reveals Silicon Valley's groupthink - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/04/17/the-wave-of-unicorn-ipos-reveals-silicon-valleys-groupthink <comment><USER2> The best part is that park is still closed.</comment>


Job destruction by robots could outweigh creation - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21599525-job-destruction-robots-could-outweigh-creation-mighty-contest <comment><USER2> And water is still wet. Really, it doesn't make sense for robots to not be a net drain on employment.

As a thought experiment, let's say that a company fires n workers because it is in the process of automating their jobs. Now, let's also assume n workers get hired, at the same wage as before, producing the automated systems which had previously replaced them. How can it be economically viable to automate, if instead of only paying your original n workers, you are now indirectly paying n employees producing the equipment you are buying, _plus_ the capital costs of automation? Since we know that it is in fact more cost effective to automate, then the only remaining possibility is that there are either fewer workers producing the automation equipment or they are being paid less.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. It would not make any sense for companies to automate anything if it did not end up reducing how much they're paying for employment.

<comment><USER4> This isn't strictly true -- an automation could come alongside a (substantial) productivity improvement, growing the firm to the point that it's total headcount still rises.

If there's consumer demand for more (and cheaper) versions of whatever product, then rather than a single company this form of automation can grow the industry as a whole too.

Inevitably, however, there will be industries that don't really need to grow. We'll just get what they make cheaper without buying much more of it. But then we'll have extra money (and extra people willing to work) -- figuring out new things for those people to do, possibly in wholly unrelated industries, is the very essence of why most of us still have jobs despite centuries of automation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This strikes me as the same argument that comes up with every new automation technology. Like all of the others, the automation will hurt people in a specific field, but help society as a whole.

ATMs hurt bank-tellers specifically, but all of society has 24/7 access to cash.

Email hurts the postal workers, but everyone can instantly communicate with nearly anyone in the developed world.

Robotic car manufacturing hurt some auto workers, but all of society gets cheaper cars.

Amazon.com hurts the mom & pop book store, but everyone gets cheaper books conveniently delivered.

Netflix crushed video rental stores, but a whole county got cheaper, easier access to video.

The list could go on forever.

<comment><USER6> > Robotic car manufacturing hurt some auto workers, but all of society gets > cheaper cars

This is false. Over the past forty years, the rise in price for the median car sold in the US has far exceeded inflation. The idea that "society gets cheaper cars" is false, cars have gotten more expensive, even taking inflation into account. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps careful track of such things.

Obviously automating something will benefit someone. You have your facts mixed up however, thus your conclusion that it benefits "society as a whole" can be disregarded.

<comment><USER7> You could argue that we're getting _better_ cars (as in, more safety and convenience features) for more-or-less the same amount of money.

<comment><USER5> I think if you take a car from today and tried to make it without automation, it would cost much more. If automation wasn't the cheaper manufacturing option, why do it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the 1920-2014, technology progressed and made many jobs irrelevant, just as improvements in robotics have put a lot of people out of work. So if technology puts people out of work, then our unemployment should have increased since the 20's. Let's take a look at some data from The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Year Rate of Unemployment 1920 5.2 % 1928 4.2 1930 8.7 1932 23.6 1934 21.7 1936 16.9 1938 19.0 1940 14.6 1942 4.7% 1944 1.2 1946 3.9 1948 3.8 1950 5.3 1952 3.0 1954 5.5 1956 4.1 1958 6.8% 1960 5.5 1962 5.5 1964 5.2 1966 3.8 1968 3.6 1970 4.9 1972 5.6 1974 5.6% 1976 7.7 19781 6.1 1980 7.1 1982 9.7 1984 7.5 19861 7.0 1987 6.2 1988 5.5 1989 5.3 19901 5.6% 1991 6.8 1992 7.5 1993 6.9 19941 6.1 1995 5.6 1996 5.4 19971 4.9 19981 4.5 19991 4.2 20001 4.0 2001 4.7 2002 5.8 20031 6.0% 20041 5.5 20051 5.1 2006 4.6 2007 4.6 2008 5.8 2009 9.3 2010 9.6 2011 8.9 2012 8.1

This doesn't seem to be the case. As people lose jobs, new types of jobs are created, just as they were in the past. The job market will continue to evolve as the world changes.

<comment><USER9> Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

<comment><USER10> And the lack of a guarantee of future results is not something to panic about, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As things get cheaper due to increased productivity, people want more things. For example, due to the declining cost of air travel, people routinely fly places, even commute by jet.

This was inconceivable not long ago.

Furthermore, vast industries have sprung up whose only product is entertainment. Back when economies were less productive, there was no room for such industries.

Even low end cars have what were once considered luxury only features. The list covers every facet of our economy.

</comment><comment><USER12> How does this grossly misguided concern come up over and over again?! To quote myself from the last time this came up:

"What's with this obsession with jobs? If all we wanted were "jobs", we could create 100 million real quickly. Just go destroy a bunch of stuff and get people to work, rebuilding everything again."

</comment><comment><USER13> How about a robot tax: any profits made by companies employing robots are taxed where that tax is put into a guaranteed wage pool.

Much like how Swiss have implemented a min guaranteed wage - feed that wage payment by industry that benefit from implementing robotic workers...

<comment><USER14> The Swiss have only collected enough signatures to get that initiative up to be voted on this year.

[http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-16/inequality-f...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-16/inequality- fight-swiss-will-vote-on-minimum-income)

It is yet to pass. Less than 50% of Swiss referenda pass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The proportion of people working seems a bit unaffected by technological change. A couple of centuries back most people were in farming and now that is done by like 2% of the population the others have found things to do mostly because people like doing stuff rather then because they's starve otherwise. Even if robots make all the stuff I imagine people will busy themselves teaching each other yoga and the like.

<comment><USER16> > the others have found things to do mostly because people like doing stuff > rather then because they's starve otherwise.

I've seen variations of this statement many times on HN, that is, "there's no such thing as disutility of labor". I'm a bit skeptical. I believe a lot of software people enjoy their jobs, and some keep working even though they don't hve to, but I doubt that's the case for the bulk of the world's urban population.

Also, people have many other material demands (sometimes called "needs") besides food and shelter. Viz. the common complaint by SV developers that "a 6 digit salary isn't much".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> More automation -> Less jobs -> Lower wages -> More jobs -> Less automation

I believe there's an equilibrium going on. I don't think we'll ever reach that point of automation, it will only happen when (and if) demographic growth turns negative. Until then, availability of cheap labour hinders "full automation".

</comment><comment><USER18> Even if every possible task were automated and made super cheap, and somehow you were able to deny access to super cheap products and services to large numbers of people, these large groups of people would still be able to trade with each other.

The robotic abundance/destitution scenario is inherently contradictory and assumes some things stay exactly constant while others undergo complete transformation.

We have advanced societies that are making great use of technology today. And others that do not. Somehow these co-exist. A completely robotic United States will still have Amish people not benefiting from robots. Anyone else that cares to operate on the tech of 2014 will be free to do so. Or the tech of 2050 or 2100.

</comment><comment><USER19> Argh! About 90% of the people mentioned in this article are Doctors, not Misters. And approximately zero of them are introduced before their names are first mentioned. Likewise acronyms. Who edited this crap?

</comment><comment><USER20> Let's stop talking about jobs and talk about productivity. What's the net productivity of automation? Let's also start talking about guaranteed minimum income.

</comment><comment><USER21> Certainly automation reduces the numbers of jobs required for production. This has always been the case. This leads to overproduction problems, but the answer is always the same:

hire more people in the public sector, and try to bolster consumption further.

It is the growth of the public sector that solves the overproduction crisis, by throttling production. This time is no different.

Taken to its logical conclusion, if all production could be automated, every one of us could work for the government...

</comment><comment><USER22> Who needs a job when you have robots doing all the work for you?! Think of all the other things you could be doing.

No, really. Think about it.

<comment><USER23> > Who needs a job when you have robots doing all the work for you?!

Anyone who doesn't own productive capital and lives in a society where you either need income from productive capital or income from labor to get the necessities of life.

> Think of all the other things you could be doing.

Starving in the street?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The advocates of basic income are almost right on this issue.

 _If_ it were the case that we have a large surplus of labor, and there was not enough work for people to do, then it would make a lot of sense to have a basic income, which would be the most efficient way to deal with technological unemployment.

 _However_ , right now, we really don't have a surplus of labor. If we did, then the average standard of living would be really high. In order to raise the standard of living of people around the world, people need to produce things, which requires work.

That fact that we cannot provide a high enough average standard of living even when the incentive to work is very high, proves that drastically lowering the incentive to work would not provide a sufficient standard of living.

<comment><USER25> You seem to be arguing as if "surplus of labour" means that as a whole the world has enough good stuff, and having more people work won't add value.

What it actually means is that there are people who want more good stuff, and are even willing to do work to get it - but that's not an option for them because there are no jobs available. It's the sad state of people not being organized to work to provide their own needs - and it's caused by wealth being so concentrated in the smallest group at the top that economic activity is frozen for everyone else.

A basic income would take wealth away from the few who have more than enough, and thaw out economic activity for everyone else. Poor people would be able to spend, AND work because others are spending.

All of this has nothing to do with robots. Except.. One of the fears of robotics is that they'll work so well that even more wealth will be concentrated to a few. Basic income is the antidote to that concern.

In the long term it gets even better.. Eventually when robots are doing most of the work, a basic income will mean that work is optional for everyone, and people will do work they find meaningful instead of necessary, or will just spend time with their families.

<comment><USER26> First off, you really need to add a disclaimer to this comment. As a cooking robot, your view is clearly biased.

That said, I mostly agree with you. However I was mulling all this over last night, and I hit a snag: If everyone is unemployed and has no money, who will patronize the services that are owned by the rich? Will it just be rich people passing money around? Or is wealth redistribution actually in the best interest of rich people, since it means more people will buy their goods and services?

<comment><USER27> > Is wealth redistribution actually in the best interest of rich people, since > it means more people will buy their goods and services?

I believe the answer is a resounding "yes." However, that doesn't exclude the possibility of a tragedy of the commons, and we all know how good markets are at preventing _those_...

> If everyone is unemployed and has no money, who will patronize the services > that are owned by the rich? Will it just be rich people passing money > around?

It's still a problem if a sizable subset of people are unemployed and have no money or ability to get money. It's not terribly difficult to imagine a system with a underclass, a consumer class, and a "owner" class. Even if we automate manufacturing, the consumer class will include mercenaries of the literal or financial variety. In fact, I wonder if that's not precisely what Wall Street is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> That would be nice. I could stand to have fewer things to do.</comment>


Bliss: $0 upfront flights anywhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.bliss.flights/ <comment><USER2> So, this company seems SUPER deceptive. I've been trying to get a hold of them to ask some questions but their chat "agent" never replies. Here are some of the things I've noticed:

When you join the waitlist you are told that:

      An average social media post sends 20 visits.

But then they'll send you an email later saying:

      All it takes is a quick tweet or Facebook post. You'd be surprised! An average post sends 50 visits.

In your confirmation email that you've joined the waitlist you are given a position in line:

      We've received your invitation request and added you to our waiting list. There are currently 9509 people ahead of you.

That email has a link in it to check your status:

      https://email@example.com&position=9509

Notice the end there, "&position=9509", if you visit that link, it tells me my position is 9909 though. In fact, you can change position to any number you want, and the site will add 400 to it, artificially moving you back in line, presumably to trick you into sharing your referral link.

</comment><comment><USER3> Buying flights on an instalment plan .... what's next buying fancy dinner with a 20 year payment plan?

I am really not sure this is solving a problem or making life worse for some people. Like payday loans.

</comment><comment><USER4> They appear to have pretty good design, could see how this is useful for people who can't afford expensive flights but not sure how they're making money in the long-term when they claim to have 0% apr. Booking commissions maybe? Isn't that how expedia/kayak makes money?

<comment><USER5> yes that's how expedia and kayak make money</comment></comment>


DC is Getting It's Own Version of Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://codybrowntext.tumblr.com/post/1602181256/dc-is-getting-its-own-version-of-y-combinator

<comment> space-monkey Short story: they provide facilities and services to startups, but aren't targeting companies that are IPO or acquisition bound. Sounds more like bootstrapping+.

Company web-site: <http://bigwindowlabs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Awesome. I really dig DC and have been throwing the idea of moving out to San Fran for some immersion but maybe this will broaden the culture here.</comment>


Ask HN:Why was Sean Parker so confident about Facebook's success, even though... - <AUTHOR>

When Sean Parker heard about Facebook, why was he so excited and confident in it's success when you had Friendster,HI5,Myspace and Stanford's internal network around. What stood out about Facebook in the face of all these rivals? <comment><USER2> Engagement data was particularly outstanding, adoption rate across an entire university was super high. Parker could see the big picture and how Facebook was solving the important "real identity" problem of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was a closed network for only college students and was gaining traction.

<comment><USER4> Yes! Sex sells. Who are looking for sex? College students. Who was that cute girl in class? Is that boy I met at that party actually cool or a tool? Answered with Facebook more than the other platforms.</comment></comment>


Writing a sqlite clone from scratch in C - <AUTHOR> https://cstack.github.io/db_tutorial/ <comment><USER2> The mere attempt feels like blasphemy. Sqlite and its developer are sacred.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is everyone crying blasphemy? Is there something I'm missing?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm jealous and horrified.</comment>


An interview with 280 North on Objective-J and Cappuccino - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/an-interview-with-280-north-on-objective-j-and-cappuccino

<comment><USER2> 280North guys did what I always thought would be an awesome and useful undertaking and implemented it better than I thought could be done. I am talking about ObjectiveJ/Cappuccino specifically, but 280Slides is a whole different story. Everything runs snappy and I don't remember last time I was so impressed with so few people's worth of work.

I can see a lot more being done in this direction, but I am just in awe in how well this was done so far in the time they had.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why did you chose to do Objective-J -> JS processing in the browers? For sake of speed, wouldn't it be a good idea to do it server-side and then just serve the JS?

<comment><USER4> Actually, we use both methods. You can preprocess the code ahead of time if you want, and serve content that way. We do this for our core frameworks (AppKit and Foundation). Most of our application code is not preprocessed though. One of the benefits of being able to run without having to "compile" (which is essentially what having to preprocess ahead of time is) is that you have a much more dynamic development environment. You can change code, hit refresh, and see your changes immediately reflected, instead of compiling and waiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Did you guys implement proper message passing and proxying, or are they ad-hoc method calls?

<comment><USER5> We do indeed do dynamic dispatch, just like Objective-C.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Guys, great job!

I have a question about timelines... how long was Obj-J in development and how long did it take you to develop 280slides? I remember reading that you started in 2005...

<comment><USER5> Thanks. Yes, Obj-J/Cappuccino was started while we were in college in 2005, but was put on hold for awhile when we had other jobs. 280 Slides was written in about 5 months, concurrently with some work on Cappuccino.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know where I can read more technical details about Objective-J or Cappuccino?

This sounds pretty impressive so far ..

</comment><comment><USER8> Does it work on the iPhone?

<comment><USER4> Short answer: yes. Long answer: There's still some work to do.</comment></comment>


The evolution of the web - <AUTHOR> http://evolutionofweb.appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> I'd never seen Firefox > 3 on Windows. Gods, it's ugly with all that glass all over the place.

I wonder why the UI integration is so strong on windows, but so poor on linux.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems a bit out of date, and the swishes on the browsers and technologies view are really confusing, and don't convey information well.

</comment><comment><USER2> Mozilla is missing, and should actually fork of Netscape (and into Firefox).

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome web browser nostalgia and excellent animated infoporn!</comment>


8 Business Misconceptions about IT - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2008/ca2008064_652958.htm?campaign_id=rss_topStories

<comment><USER2> These 8 items are NOT what's wrong with IT in your organization.

They are a barometer of how well your organization uses IT as a competitive weapon.

If you run an organization with any of these _signals_ , don't blame IT, blame yourself. And fix it fast. Your competitors already have.

<comment><USER3> One interesting question is how non-IT people uses IT for competitive advantage. If non-IT people doesn't know what IT is doing and IT likes to keep the veil from them. Then how can non-IT people uses something when they knows nothing about it?

If people like us was thrown a programming problem requires us to use a new programming language and we are interested in. We will start to play around both and try to understand them. Then maybe an idea came up so we just leverage what we learned from playing around to solve the problem.

So for us, we learned from our very beginning to play around things to "understand" the problem and learn how to tweak something. I understand successful business people also learn from trials and errors. But probably most mediocre IT and non-IT people both lack such aptitude.

<comment><USER2> "Then how can non-IT people uses something when they knows nothing about it?"

From their customers. Especially the ones they're losing.

Do you think that everyone suddenly just had a website one day?

Here's more likely what happened...

"Hey Joe, you haven't placed an order with us this month. Anything wrong?"

"Sorry Fred, but we've switched to XYZ Company for our widgets. I meant to tell you but I forgot. They have a website on the internet that lets us automatically configure our widgets specifically for our customers. Our purchasing people love it. They'd rather use it than calling your 800 number."

A simple example, but the same story plays out all day long all over the world in all kinds of technologies.

It's management's job to stay on top of this and insist on what they need. Or, as they say, they're toast.</comment></comment></comment>


Data Exhaust - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_exhaust <comment><AUTHOR> terrible terminology or not? a part of me understands that data = pollution. But then I watched a SW engineering talk and they seemed to take offense in how the engineering community depicts their valuable user data. those concerns too resonated with me. did they not understand the meaning behind it, or did they maybe have a point. Suddenly I'm no longer sure who is right. unfortunately I no longer know which talk it was but iirc it was Harari or something from @zeneyp (so it wasn't a non-tech talk but also not something that would deep-dive into ML)

edit: more context</comment>


O2 network scraps unlimited data for smartphones - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10285910.stm

<comment><USER2> And here is the end of the era of unlimited wireless data...</comment>


Victory for Net Neutrality in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://juliareda.eu/2016/08/victory-for-net-neutrality/ <comment><USER3> As always, devil is in the details.

If you look at the fine print in the published "Guidelines for implementing Net Neutratily" [1] linked in the article you will see that there are 3 exceptions to the rule (a,b,c). Being "c" the one that should fear us most:

EXCEPTIONS

      a) "comply with Union legislative acts (...)

-> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok.

      b) preserve the integrity and security of the network, of services provided via that network, and of the terminal equipment of end-users;

-> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one.

      c) prevent impending network congestion and mitigate the effects of exceptional or temporary network congestion, provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally.

-> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their own will.

This last one ruins the whole law. And this is not what me as European wanted. ISPs won :(

[1] [http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/...](http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/download/0/6160-berec- guidelines-on-the-implementation-b_0.pdf)

[EDIT] typos

<comment><USER4> IMO, IANAL

> -> meaning that a court order can change Net Neutrality, hmmm ok.

It would be weird for a court to order anyone to break net neutrality.

> -> meaning that in order to guarantee the security of the network Net > Neutrality may be avoided. I'm so-so on this one.

The intention here seems to be to allow (D)DOS attack mitigation etc.

> -> Meaning that ISPs can throttle specific categories of traffic at their > own will.

Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."

<comment><USER3> > Note that the law is very clear that this only is allowed "provided that > equivalent categories of traffic are treated equally."

They can, for instance, slow down P2P traffic. What do you think about that?

<comment><USER5> comcast could in the US, and won in court. Despite US regulation being seen as quite robust.

By this text, they'd need to show it was an exceptional and temporary necessity to deal with congestion.

<comment><USER6> If you are talking about the case from 5ish years ago, that was because the court struck down the entire basis for net neutrality. The net neutrality rules themselves didn't allow for blocking p2p.

<comment><USER5> yeah, that's the case. Could you clarify? I'm just seeing old articles claiming the last court verdict on the matter was that the FCC overstepped its authority in that particular case? Did some case or law change this? But yeah, hard to see how discriminating a particular protocol w/o cause could be network neutral.

<comment><USER6> Sure. There was a new FCC ruling that based it's decision on a much more legally sound law.

The FCC is allowed to regulate telecommunication services strictly. Right now it takes a sort of a hands off approach, but they have broad authority to make rules. Before 2015, the FCC considered ISPs to be "information services" instead of "telecommunication services." So the first time the FCC proposed net neutrality rules, it tried to apply them under the "information services" framework.

The Court in 2010 (I think) found that the FCC didn't have the power to regulate "information services" so harshly. So the court canceled their net neutrality rules.

So last year the FCC reclassified ISPs as telecommunication services. Since they are allowed to harshly regulate those services, it's considered very likely to upheld by the court this time.

The only chance it gets struck down is if the court thinks the FCC was clearly wrong about ISPs being a telecommunication service. But the law is pretty clear that are. But I think some ISPs are still fighting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Next fight : That ISPs advertise the minimum guaranteed bandwidth and are banned from advertising the maximum theoretical number.

Then only we could measure that they do offer the same bandwidth with Netflix and Vimeo as they advertise. Net neutrality at its best.

Edit: Of course the number will be very low because they have to (God forbid!) provision their network to serve this bandwidth to all customers during peak hours. But what we're looking for is not a huge number - we're looking for a number that allows meaningful comparison with competitors.

<comment><USER8> That's not likely going to happen nore is it a sensible thing to ask for.

As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint? You would have to provision for the maximal capacity all over your network. Given that most people only utilize their channel 1% of the time, this is a huge waste!

What's sensible to ask ISPs to do is: (a) Communicate historically experienced bandwith at each region (b) Provided certified, standartized measurement facilities (software / hardware?!) that can be used to monitor of the link utilization/saturation levels. (d) Refund policy, when agreed service level targets (as measured in b) were not hit. (This should be legally mandated)

<comment><USER9> > As an ISP how would you _guarantee_ the bandwidth for each endpoint?

When I still lived in Slovenia, I had 20/20 FTTH. Fiber went directly into a router in my bedroom. My bandwidth was _always_ exactly 20/20\. No matter what.

Now I have Comcast. Speedtest says I get 80/6\. On Friday and Saturday evenings Netflix and Facebook and many other things often experience issues. Now I can't _confirm_ any of this. If you run speedtest, it's fine. If you ping something, there's no packet loss. But it just doesn't _feel_ very fast and reliable under normal use.

<comment><USER10> > My bandwidth was always exactly 20/20\. No matter what.

This can't possibly be true. The ISP providing the service can only guarantee a particular speed to the boarder of their network.

Once you connect to a service not hosted by your ISP they can't guarantee anything.

<comment><USER9> Sure, they can't guarantee speed with a particular service, but they _can_ guarantee width and reliability of my pipe. Believe me, back then I was downloading so much crap that my internet was stuffed full at all times. I'd notice any dip in service.

And when I was on ADSL, I did notice those dips. A lot of them. With FTTH, they went away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Facebook tried to introduce "Free Basics" in Angola after its failed attempts at doing so in India. Good to see similar efforts being made in Angola to educate about Net Neutrality as well. Maybe they can use some takeaway from the above ruling.

Source: [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikipedia-zero-facebook- fre...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/wikipedia-zero-facebook-free-basics- angola-pirates-zero-rating)

</comment><comment><USER12> _" It has to be noted with regret that it was not our digital Commissioner Günther Oettinger who listened to the people and defended an internet not biased towards big corporate interests [...]"_

That would hardly have been expected: in the first six months of being a Commissioner, Oettinger met with _two_ NGO representatives but with _44_ corporate lobbyists [1].

[1] [http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/guenther- oettinger...](http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/guenther-oettinger- und-lobbyismus-eu-kommissar-trifft-selten-ngos-a-1040147.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> It encourages me to see that the European court at least has some people on it that seem to understand that net neutrality is in fact a human rights issue.

And this is why Brexit is so heart-breaking. I'm surrounded by people in my personal life who think it's a fantastic idea, but they're not the most... informed? Likewise for local politicians.

(Side note to my rant: I have this theory that the rise of the iPhone, and the fact that it is such a big part of people's lives now, has fooled regular folks into believing that they're experts on technology. I have no more than anecdotal evidence for this).

I strongly suspect that local legislators will see no conflict whatsoever with scrapping these laws when the exit finally comes, and it saddens me that I'm surrounded by a lot of people that will be cheering when it happens.

This is from a real conversation I had this week:

"What it boils down to is do you want to have us control our own laws and decisions and borders, or have to take orders from some bureaucrat in Brussels that doesn't understand us?"

Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

<comment><USER14> Those are candy-bars to make you happy, just like the EHRC is keeping the leftists in line while we slowly shift toward an ordoliberal paradigm at the european level. For countries like France, Italy and even Germany, that means social regression and harmonisation by the bottom.

>Yes, I would rather have decisions made by people in Brussels that understand what they're doing.

Yay structural unemployment in the eurozone! The folks at the commission and at the ECB sure know as hell what they are doing since the EU is a sui generis structure and the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment absolutely _did not_ hurt western economies and destroyed the industrial tissue of those countries. I am being sarcastic.

Now, without any offense, you sound like someone who has red a wikipedia page about the European Union and who nows consider everyone having dissenting opinion to be a stinky redneck who does not deserve a voice.

Maybe that's not what you wanted to convey, in that case I apologise, but to be honest, at this point, I have met so many pseudo-smartass people who think they understand everything that I have very little hope you don't fall into that category of people. Thinking technocracy will magically solves all your problems is lazy, at best.

<comment><USER15> Intriguing but 3 questions:

How could shifting more towards Ordoliberalism (=government regulation to maximize competition plus a social safety net) be a bad thing? Quality of life is rather high in Germany after all.

Is there in fact evidence that unemployment is intentionally maintained in order to suppress inflation?

Even if your assertions are true, how would Brexit address any of these things and generally how would a balkanized Europe be more prosperous let alone more globally competitive than a unified Europe?

<comment><USER16> Unification is counter-productive if you think that the goals of the group are bad.

<comment><USER15> Which goals would those be? An efficient tariff free zone? A larger area for individual opportunity? A reasonable social safety net? Greater power on the global stage? Protection for human rights?

Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing of anything nationalist and right leaning?

<comment><USER17> "Or is the objection merely to some wholly imaginary threat to the purity of the anglo-saxon race and culture and an unthinking and instantaneous embracing of anything nationalist and right leaning?"

Yes. Yes it is. Everyone who disagrees with you is emotionally driven and intellectually dishonest.

The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country. The EEC should have stuck with the tariff free zone and free movement (of workers, not all citizens, as it was originally). Instead they grew into a 28-nation wannabe superpower with a currency, flag, central bank, law-making powers, etc. Now Juncker is pushing for an EU army. The whole project has departed from reality and is going to collapse in a few decades, sadly taking down the free trade zone with it.

<comment><USER15> > The goal we object to was the attempt to build a giant country.

Why?

Honestly, how would that be bad? After all the UK consists of Wales, England, Scotland and N. Ireland. People of the past opposed that unity so much they were willing to die to try to prevent it yet on the whole that unity has been undeniably positive.

For the EU for example, how could having an single foreign policy be a bad idea in any way? How does having an EU flag do any harm what so ever? I'd claim that point in particular shows the issue very much is emotionally driven.

And what will make it fall apart except people voting to leave it on grounds as trivial as having a flag?

Likewise such an extreme step as dismantling the entire EU project rather than just fixing the monetary problem can't really be justified rationally and looks pretty overwhelmingly like emotionally driven nationalism.

<comment><USER16> >single foreign policy be a bad idea in any way?

Because you might disagree with it? How can you be so narrow-minded to not even fathom people having different fundamental beliefs? Why don't Israel and Palestine just merge into one country called Unicornia? Why don't all people just separate religious beliefs from government, or conversely, why don't we all just switch to the correct(tm) religion?

One country may not want to support terrorists while another wants to support them because they are 'freedom fighters', how do you propose they operate under the same foreign policy?

<comment><USER15> Do you agree with every foreign policy decision your current country makes? Are there really allot EU member states that support terrorist? Is the UK - <USER2> divide really as violent as the Israel Palestine divide?

I was hoping there was some coherent argument in favor of Brexit that I had not heard and that maronthewall might be hinting at. Clearly I was in error in that hope.

And as objectivistbrit so defensively denied: '...emotionally driven and intellectually dishonest...' is shown very clearly again to be very much at the core of the Brexit movement

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Disappointingly little concrete information of what's in now, anyone knows how to read these things and skimmed the original text? I heard that EU "net neutrality" is disappointlngly vague. I see providers offering free data for things like Spotify, which, in my understanding, is exactly what net neutrality should prevent.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I see providers offering free data for things like Spotify"

Any source for this? I've only ever seen providers offer free Spotify membership, not free data.

Edit: Thanks for the responses. I had no idea this was happening.

<comment><USER19> Swedens I believe largest operators 3 and Telia has unlimited or a large amount of data that doesn't count towards the usual data limits when using specially selected services such as Spotify and Facebook.

<comment><USER20> Telia also attached a condition that you had to promise to be nice on the internet and not practice "näthat"(net hate). Not joking either, they were then very unresponsive to criticism and questioning of their stance on net neutrality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bravo EU! Sure I see that there are plenty of commented caveats, but coming within 24 hours of a 14 billion dollar retroactive tax bill for one of the world's most opportunistic tax dodgers, I cannot help but have good faith towards this announcement. Here is the only bloc, globally, that actually seems to care about individuals versus corporations, with unequivocal and demonstrated evidence of said motivations. I've been fed a diet of "useless, corrupt, 'Brussels' bureaucrats" ever since I moved to Britain (which, as an aside, today disgracefully tried to woo AAPL with the anti-tax red carpet). But all I actually see, is a bunch of people, bureaucrats perhaps, but who are _trying to look out for me_ . Today I say, Hurrah EU! Thank you Julia Reda.

</comment><comment><USER22> I once heard an interview with the Economist digital editor Tom Standage where he claims (at 5:45 into the interview) that net neutrality is the wrong thing to focus on, and the important thing is just making sure there is more competition between the telcos. Can someone more familiar with this issue tell me if this argument is correct?

[https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile- st...](https://www.podcat.com/podcasts/i63zqo-untether-tv-mobile-strategy-and- tactics-audio-pervasive-computing-internet-of-things/episodes/2j53su-why-the- economist-launched-their-daily-smartphone-app-espresso-with-digital-editor- tom-standage)

<comment><USER23> The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision. If the services is cheap enough and has the thing that they usually use then they are done. Competition can easy bring cheaper services but hardly can bring improving in long term needs.

That's why we have laws that forbid companies to pollute the environment, restrict child labor and the like. Consumers will choose the short term benefits for themselves over the long term benefits for the society.

<comment><USER24> "The argument doesn't makes sense. When a normal citizen is choosing her internet provider they are not going to expend a lot of time looking at the implications of their decision."

I think you're missing the implication of the point.

If there is 'a lot of competition' \- it makes cartel-like or colluding behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net- neutrality.

Customers don't have to be aware of it.

And it's a reasonable argument: ensuring healthy and fair competition is almost always better than legislative controls, usually because regulations are often poorly conceived and effectuated, or at least, the market changes rapidly and the regulations fail to adapt.

I think that a reasonable net-neutrality law should probably be made both in Europe and in the US, that said, I'm weary of it being too onerous.

My position is also pragmatic: 'more competition' is unlikely in an industry with such massive barriers to entry etc..

<comment><USER25> > If there is 'a lot of competition' \- it makes cartel-like or colluding > behaviour among carriers difficult, thereby facilitating de-facto net- > neutrality.

Can you explain this further? I struggle to see how you get from "a lot of competition" to "de-facto net neutrality", and how that would continue indefinitely.

It seems to me that we had de-facto net neutrality from the outset but that over time, as the industry matured, the large players started to talk about colluding. It has taken pro-neutrality lobbying and legislation to maintain neutrality in what was previously a free market.

<comment><USER24> Because it would be very difficult for carriers to co-opt entities like Netflix into nonstandard schemes if there were a lot of competition.

You hinted at it in your comment: "the large players started to talk about colluding"

Only a when there are a 'small number of large players' is this kind of collusion possible.

When there is a lot of competition, the entire layer of the value chain becomes weaker.

It's a problem because they control a scarce resource: the airwaves, and also a kind of scarce resource: access rights for fibre etc..

<comment><USER25> In my (limited) understanding of economics, all industries coalesce from numerous small players into a small number of big players.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't understand how it's "progress" to move decisions from a small number of bureaucracies to a single, less accountable bureaucracy.

<comment><USER27> It's "progress" when the larger bureaucracy is harder to regulatorily capture, if only because in larger jurisdictions there are more competitors.

<comment><USER28> > larger bureaucracy is harder to regulatorily capture

The example of US federal government does not exactly support this point.

<comment><USER27> It does when you compare it to state and municipal governments.

<comment><USER28> I don't see any indication federal government is more resistant to regulatory capture than state government. It may be more expensive, but the numbers are still don't even breach 1% of potential profits, and capturing one federal regulator is much better and easier than capturing fifty+ state ones or ten thousand local ones...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> These were the guidelines from November 2015

[http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX...](http://eur- lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32015R2120&from=en)

<comment><USER30> The two arguments presented - to keep a legal path for a higher priority routing - during late 2015 Trilogue Negotiations that framed the directive the way it is:

Driverless cars Medical applications (remote operations rooms were mentioned)

You have to give to telecoms - they built the infrastructure and are desperate to design some services that could become additional source of revenues. For now, it seems, the door is shut - maybe with the new automation coming they could dig it up - akin to "you don't want your house to send fire warning to city grid too slow, do you?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Irish phone companies are also doing the same:

Meteor [http://www.killbiller.com/blog/2016/6/16/free-facebook- insta...](http://www.killbiller.com/blog/2016/6/16/free-facebook-instagram- and-twitter-data-from-meteor-mobile)

Eir: [https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/eir-meteor-mobile- socia...](https://www.siliconrepublic.com/life/eir-meteor-mobile-social- unlimited-twitter-facebook-instagram)

</comment><comment><USER32> How about Clothing neutrality? :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN?

</comment><comment><USER34> For your convenience, here's just the text "in the boxes" (the Recitals), from [http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/...](http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/download/0/6160-berec- guidelines-on-the-implementation-b_0.pdf)

These are the first 9, the other 10 are here: [https://gist.github.com/daveloyall/a1112bb70412d77bebc809090...](https://gist.github.com/daveloyall/a1112bb70412d77bebc8090906769498)

Recital 1 </comment><comment>===

This Regulation aims to establish common rules to safeguard equal and non- discriminatory treatment of traffic in the provision of internet access services and related end-users' rights. It aims to protect end-users and simultaneously to guarantee the continued functioning of the internet ecosystem as an engine of innovation.

Recital 2 </comment><comment>===

The measures provided for in this Regulation respect the principle of technological neutrality, that is to say they neither impose nor discriminate in favour of the use of a particular type of technology.

Recital 3 </comment><comment>===

The internet has developed over the past decades as an open platform for innovation with low access barriers for end-users, providers of content, applications and services and providers of internet access services. The existing regulatory framework aims to promote the ability of end-users to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice. However, a significant number of end-users are affected by traffic management practices which block or slow down specific applications or services. Those tendencies require common rules at the Union level to ensure the openness of the internet and to avoid fragmentation of the internal market resulting from measures adopted by individual Member States.

Recital 4 </comment><comment>===

An internet access service provides access to the internet, and in principle to all the end-points thereof, irrespective of the network technology and terminal equipment used by end-users. However, for reasons outside the control of providers of internet access services, certain end points of the internet may not always be accessible. Therefore, such providers should be deemed to have complied with their obligations related to the provision of an internet access service within the meaning of this Regulation when that service provides connectivity to virtually all end points of the internet. Providers of internet access services should therefore not restrict connectivity to any accessible end-points of the internet.

Recital 5 </comment><comment>===

When accessing the internet, end-users should be free to choose between various types of terminal equipment as defined in Commission Directive 2008/63/EC (1). Providers of internet access services should not impose restrictions on the use of terminal equipment connecting to the network in addition to those imposed by manufacturers or distributors of terminal equipment in accordance with Union law.

Recital 6 </comment><comment>===

End-users should have the right to access and distribute information and content, and to use and provide applications and services without discrimination, via their internet access service. The exercise of this right should be without prejudice to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law, regarding the lawfulness of content, applications or services. This Regulation does not seek to regulate the lawfulness of the content, applications or services, nor does it seek to regulate the procedures, requirements and safeguards related thereto. Those matters therefore remain subject to Union law, or national law that complies with Union law.

Recital 7 </comment><comment>===

In order to exercise their rights to access and distribute information and content and to use and provide applications and services of their choice, end- users should be free to agree with providers of internet access services on tariffs for specific data volumes and speeds of the internet access service. Such agreements, as well as any commercial practices of providers of internet access services, should not limit the exercise of those rights and thus circumvent provisions of this Regulation safeguarding open internet access. National regulatory and other competent authorities should be empowered to intervene against agreements or commercial practices which, by reason of their scale, lead to situations where end-users' choice is materially reduced in practice. To this end, the assessment of agreements and commercial practices should, inter alia, take into account the respective market positions of those providers of internet access services, and of the providers of content, applications and services, that are involved. National regulatory and other competent authorities should be required, as part of their monitoring and enforcement function, to intervene when agreements or commercial practices would result in the undermining of the essence of the end-users' rights.

Recital 8 </comment><comment>===

When providing internet access services, providers of those services should treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender or receiver, content, application or service, or terminal equipment. According to general principles of Union law and settled case-law, comparable situations should not be treated differently and different situations should not be treated in the same way unless such treatment is objectively justified.

Recital 9 </comment><comment>===

The objective of reasonable traffic management is to contribute to an efficient use of network resources and to an optimisation of overall transmission quality responding to the objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic, and thus of the content, applications and services transmitted. Reasonable traffic management measures applied by providers of internet access services should be transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and should not be based on commercial considerations. The requirement for traffic management measures to be non-discriminatory does not preclude providers of internet access services from implementing, in order to optimise the overall transmission quality, traffic management measures which differentiate between objectively different categories of traffic. Any such differentiation should, in order to optimise overall quality and user experience, be permitted only on the basis of objectively different technical quality of service requirements (for example, in terms of latency, jitter, packet loss, and bandwidth) of the specific categories of traffic, and not on the basis of commercial considerations. Such differentiating measures should be proportionate in relation to the purpose of overall quality optimisation and should treat equivalent traffic equally. Such measures should not be maintained for longer than necessary.

</comment><comment><USER33> any thoughts on Obama handing over the DNS directory to the UN?</comment>


Judge: Strip clubs, other 'disfavored' businesses entitled to PPP loans - <AUTHOR> https://news.trust.org/item/20200511212058-s2wvj <comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree, if it was /is and meet the criteria, why not? They pay taxes and have employees too and were affected by the Covid.</comment>


Qualcomm/Broadcom Merger Blocked by Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/12/technology/trump-broadcom-qualcomm-merger.html <comment><USER2> Whilst undoubtedly it would have been a great move for the combined company, they would have too much market share of high-speed wireless chipsets and this could have ended up badly for consumers - MediaTek, Intel and RealTek are still bit players in wave 2 AC gear and beyond.

Also Qualcomm have traditionally been a little more open with their chipsets (binary blob notwithstanding) so hopefully more routers in the future will support open source firmwares without having to sign NDA's for driver source access like DD-WRT did with Broadcom.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good. We don't need more monopolistic conglomerates.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not necessarily a bad thing, but... "National security"?

They told him that Singapore is different from Hong Kong and has nothing to do with China, did they?

Because if it's about a small(er) country where China has economic influence, than no merger with an APAC company will ever be approved, including companies from countries like Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines.

Also, is Broadcom really a Singaporean company? A quick scan of online resources seems to indicate that it's only incorporated here (likely for tax purposes).

<comment><USER5> Australia and New Zealand are part of Five Eyes, so we like them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ignoring any concerns regarding national security and ignoring that this is related to Drumpf, I'm pleased that we aren't going to have a second chipzilla.

<comment><USER7> So you think having one Chipzilla is better than two? And that this Chipzilla didn't lobby with Trump to stop that merger?</comment></comment>