I'm a 12-year-old girl. Why don't the characters in my apps look like me? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/04/im-a-12-year-old-girl-why-dont-the-characters-in-my-apps-look-like-me/ <comment><USER2> This is a bit tangential to the article, but the first paragraph stuck out to me.

        For a 12-year-old girl, playing games on an iPhone is pretty regular behavior. Almost all of my friends have game apps on their phones, and we'll spend sleepovers playing side by side.

Back in my day, I was playing video games all the time, hacking them with debug cheats and GameShark. This was universally called a waste of my time by every adult I met, I had to go to great lengths to convince people I should be allowed to do it, and it's what on-ramped me to a super lucrative (and I hope useful to society) career in tech.

Yet here we've arrived at a state of affairs where most western children regularly spend inordinate amounts of time on walled-up instant-gratification video game platforms designed to vacuum money out of their parent's wallets, entirely detached from inspiring them to hack at things and go into technology. Somehow _this_ state of affairs is perfectly normal and okay.

Yeah, I'm a bit bitter about it.

<comment><USER3> It's still seen as a waste of time, I think. Just has finally been accepted as normal. And while you may have been firing up hex editors, that probably wasn't the norm.

YOu are right, though, that the computer games of the nineties offered a lot more hackability than iPhone apps. ZZT was an introduction to OOP for many kids, Red Alert had rules.ini that defined the stats for each unit, and Duke3D had configuration files in C. Mods and "Total Conversions" were a things. That ecosystem isn't just unavailable in mobile games, but would probably be hated by many companies who want full control over their product.

So two things we should do: write more moddable games, include defaults that don't assume we're all male (or white, for that matter.

<comment><USER4> I got into programming a decade ago with Quake 2 engine forks and Neverwinter Nights private servers. You would never have avenues into that kind of thing from the ios platform at all. It is very much like how anyone from the Windows GUI generation never touched a terminal so they do not even know what a program / file / etc really is to begin with.

<comment><USER5> I don't know about that. I grew up on classic Mac OS with nary a command line in sight, and I found my way under the skin just fine. I was building compilers and writing device drivers before I ever learned how shell scripting worked. I think people who want to get inside will generally figure out how; the information is all out there for the asking. My pet theory is that there are just as many people interested in the inner workings as ever, but that we're a much smaller proportion of the total computer-using population now, and so we have a much smaller influence on the culture around computers and networks than we used to.

<comment><USER4> Except getting into Windows isn't a thing, even today, and even for all but the most professional engineers behind huge companies with Microsofts ear. Literally the limit of Windows is registry editing and trying to reverse engineer the horrible contents of some file in system32. There are no guts to see, no knobs to tweak, because its one massive black box. Earlier OSes, even Mac OS, has to be much more open because resources were much more limited and you could not obscure the implementation behind the black box without degrading the experience too much. More performance let MS get away with that, and if not for modable game engines there would have been nothing in my childhood to tinker with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The comments critiquing her research make me so sad. I don't think anyone wouldn't agree with her basic, essential point; Many, many more games have only a default male character.

It is interesting that often we don't see others' points of view until they're put in front of us. My entire life, I've played games with male defaults and never noticed the lack of females. Only when my 8 year-old girl said, "Why can't I play a girl?" did I realize it was an issue. Yikes!

<comment><USER7> It is indeed sad; I think history has shown that most people who benefit from a system of advantage just reflexively don't like when others talk about how it works, but that's just how I see it.

I'm playing OlliOlli (edited the name in since a user asked), a really awesome and successful game right now from a small (ish?) company (they're even making a sequel) where you only get one character to play as, and he is definitely male -- you couldn't even spin him as possibly being female. I'm male too and I'm afraid to point this out to the company, because of the backlash that usually happens, and I think the company is pretty much all male staff. It's not a huge deal but if the sequel is just as limited I'll express my disappointment, as it's a great game otherwise.

<comment><USER8> Definitely point it out, here and to the game developer. To a great degree it just comes down to awareness, and the best fix for that is to talk about it. The beneficiaries don't want to be sexist (of course there always are exceptions); people just don't notice it unless it happens to them -- just as people ignore most risks in other areas of life, such as lack of backups or weak passwords, health risks, etc. until they get burnt. As one commenter here said, he didn't notice until it affected his daughter.

Just don't assume maliciousness and others won't either. There are plenty of things in the world I don't know about and I learn from everyone else; I just try pull my weight by sharing the things I've learned.

<comment><USER9> I think that is great advice - if it bugs you, You should reach out to the developer. Email or tweet them, and say, Hey I have a daughter/girlfriend/wife and she wishes she could play OlliOlli as a female.

What is unfortunate is that there is a growing group of activists who will start the discussion with a public accusation or attack.

<comment><USER7> I feel for that woman in your life, who would be called an "attacking activist" if she ever strayed outside of your proscribed guidelines of civility. It's unfortunate that women have to deal with violence and discrimination from men so much that they get tired of it and express deep anger on the internet. I as a male sympathize with the anger, not the targets of the anger.

<comment><USER9> _I as a male sympathize with the anger, not the targets of the anger_

Good luck being happy in life. Victims deserve your empathy, not the angry. Anger rarely leads good things, whether it be at a personal level, or at a macro level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My daughters are 6 and 8. One of the biggest questions they have before starting any new game is "can I be a girl?" Even in Minecraft, their favorite, they try to dress up the character as much as possible. They're terribly disappointed when where are no girl characters and offhand, they only bought/play one game without a girl character (GTA V, though we skip the missions which contain the questionable for kids content).

Even in Myst, they asked/pretend the main character is a girl (though the intro makes it rather clear that's not the case).

It's really surprising to me, since as a boy I often chose female characters and didn't really think about it. But game devs could easily be losing money by alienating so much of the market. (Though girl characters for purchase, so long clearly identified in demos or marketing materials, is probably a cynical way to fix the situation. Spending $5 to make my daughters enjoy a game is an automatic buy.)

And it extends further, too. When buying a ThinkPad for my 6-yr-old, she _really_ wanted a colored one. Even when explaining it's a superior platform, how it'll hook into her audio hardware, etc., she was only OK with the platform after I said we could get one of those vinyl skins printed up for her ThinkPad, so it wouldn't be all black.

Maybe this is all well-known, but it's just amazing to see how strong the "feminine drive" is, essentially naturally, at such s young age. (We severely restrict the amount of shitty girls kid's TV shows, no Barbie, no Disney products, biggest toys are LEGO, etc.)

<comment><USER4> > (We severely restrict the amount of shitty girls kid's TV shows, no Barbie, > no Disney products, biggest toys are LEGO, etc.)

If they go to public school peer relations and student body culture _will_ override prior teaching. When presented with the girls sitting next to them talking about the shows and toys you never exposed them to, they are met with the decision to have faith in their parents or seek to fit in with the status quo.

It is why it is so hard to break childhood stereotypes, because unless you can get a majority of parents to pressure the disjunction, the culture of their classroom will limit what you can do.

<comment><USER11> > If they go to public school peer relations and student body culture will > override prior teaching. When presented with the girls sitting next to them > talking about the shows and toys you never exposed them to, they are met > with the decision to have faith in their parents or seek to fit in with the > status quo.

I don't think it's quite that hard. If you expect to counteract the influence simply by removing offending messages, then yes, it will not be successful in the face of peers. But if you explain and teach your family's value system that explains WHY you avoid Barbie and the like, that can be much more sticky.

<comment><USER4> Except from the childs perspective you are preaching ethics and equality and esoteric concepts about human rights and freedoms while they are in the now and immediately disassociated from their peer group due to dissimilar attachment to culturally normative and popular topics. It makes them resent you because they end up with few friends in a sea of those who will antagonize them for being different, even if those are the "good" friends you want them to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Not all apps have taken this route. "The Hunger Games" lets you choose > between being a girl or boy for free.

The Hunger Games app? As in, an app based on a book with a female protagonist? That's kind of like saying "Oh, hey, the Pride and Prejudice game lets you play as a girl!" It's a telling detail that could slip past if you're unfamiliar with the story.

<comment><USER12> I agree, and actually find it a bit telling that a game based on a story with such a strong female protagonist feels the need to have a male playable character at all.

<comment><USER13> Probably because 12 year old boys like to play as somebody who looks like them just as much as 12 year old girls do. Games offering both options is exactly what the article was advocating.

<comment><USER7> Edit: see wongarsu's comment below, as what I say below is uninformed.

The author was advocating for games in general offering characters of both sexes more often; I doubt she'd assert that every single game must have female options. Hunger Games an existing plot, and just as girls have been dealing with male-character-only games for decades, boys can deal with games that stick to the plot -- and I think 12-year-old boys can understand the motivation to stick to it.

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't complain if the game wouldn't have male characters. What the game offers (after thirty seconds of google search [1]) is that you can play as different characters (there seem to be multiple males and multiples females), and all of them are prominent characters in the story (at least in the movie). As this isn't shoehorning something in, I can't see anything to complain about. There's legitimate reasons for including male characters and as there's already multiple females to choose from it's only logical to allow male options too.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-hunger-games-panem- risin...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-hunger-games-panem- rising/id885877695?mt=8)

<comment><USER7> That's logical, I agree; I wasn't aware of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _If I were an app maker, the ethical issue of charging for girl characters > and not boy characters would be enough reason to change._

I chuckled. App makers (especially the ones in the "top 50 essential apps") are well oiled capitalist money-making machines. Ethics rarely come into play when the A/B tests they run suggest that the product direction go one way (towards money) and not the other ("but what about the children!").

I personally don't _feel_ this way, but you can imagine how businesses at that level would.

</comment><comment><USER15> The idiotic Washington Post website actually makes the thumbnail image _smaller_ when you click it. Fortunately, the URL of the image is hackable to get a full-size version:

[http://img.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp- content/uplo...](http://img.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/DATA-FROM-MADDIE.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, nice find. The dismissive contempt half of the commenters have for the 12-year-old girl who meticulously researched and wrote this article is appalling but not surprising.

<comment><USER17> Because she is a girl or because she is 12 years old?

<comment><USER18> it's because she's a girl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Unfortunately, this is likely a side-effect of the majority of game developers being male.

A male making a female character is an altogether dicey proposition. Not only do they have to go through extra effort to imagine said character, but they also run the significant risk of being castigated if said female character doesn't perfectly align to various norms.

<comment><USER7> >they also run the significant risk of being castigated if said female character doesn't perfectly align to various norms

I'm interested in this apparent phenomenon, can you an example?

<comment><USER20> I can't find the article now, but I remember a quote by Brianna Wu expressing frustration at having the characters of her game said to be "promoting anorexia" because of their wispy tall character designs (just recently she ended up changing them in the PC port of her game, in fact, after endless criticism.) The characters are exaggerated, but honestly to the point that they (intentionally) aren't realistic.

Anita Sarkeesian's graduate thesis and the subject of more than one of her videos is an extensive criticism of how "strong female characters" in fiction reinforce binary gender stereotypes by requiring that their definition of strength conform to masculine ideals of it rather than feminine alternative models (strong female characters have to be "badass".) I don't think she's wrong, but the argument has been leveraged often enough that it's made even me wonder what would be good enough to satisfy some people. Please note that you can trip this criticism simply by adding additional female characters, which is exactly what some people here are complaining about. You add a female sprite, the female "acts like a male". It's not as simple as just adding female characters.

Women's portrayal in video games is an ideological battleground, to an extent that men's portrayal is not. This is why it's potentially a risk. You can't even win by not playing, because lack of women is a problem too. But you can lose the least by not playing or not caring. I think that is why the two default states for female representation in games are "nonexistent" and "terrible".

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure how "not having a body that implies anorexia" is a "norm" in itself, any more than having two feet is. If female characters are created that adhere to destructive norms, the creators should expect criticism; I'm not sure why this is a bad thing, when almost everyone would criticize people for making racist caricture characters or doing blackface.

I think we can agree that the "strong female character" trope is complicated in terms of why it exists and how it works, and every single person isn't going to "leverage" criticism of it perfectly. I accept this as a fact of life and don't think it's relevant to OP's statements.

Choosing to "lose the least" strikes me as silly at best, when contacting a few women in your life (hopefully you have as many in your company) and consulting them about the character you're creating is not hard. If you are still criticized after consulting them, you listen to the criticism, maybe write about how you listened to it, and try again in your next game, which is still not hard -- it doubtlessly happens all the time with criticism of all other sorts.

<comment><USER21> "I've created a cool game with heaps of female characters"

"YOU MISOGYNIST! The female characters are all X".

"We've taken feedback and made some Y & Z characters as well".

"YOU MISOGYNIST! There is more to women than X, Y & Z."

"So we've made a game with male characters..."

That's the argument as I can see it. Is it fair or real? Who knows, but that's what it is!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > In one game, "Survival Run with Bear Grylls," you can put the character in a > Santa Claus suit for $1.98, but there is no girl to be had at any price. > Does this mean that girls aren't capable of escaping a bear, but Santa is?

Another classic example of girls that are capable of escaping bears being unrepresented in tech. I kid, by seriously the cause of this isn't game devs being sexest against girls, it's (IMO) society being sexist in general. Boys (not men) will not play games that look like they may be made for girls because of what society might think of them. The fear of being bullied for enjoying anything pink or featuring women is very real for most boys growing up, especially (but not only) if the boy is already feeling confused and ashamed of what his sexuality might be. Since the mobile game market is dominated by children, having the main character be female can potentially scare away a large percentage of the market. Unless the game is already clearly "girly", then the risk just isn't worth it.

TL;DR: Boys playing girls = gay, girls playing boys = normal.

<comment><USER6> Girls playing boys isn't so much normal as it's the only option they've had.

Also, the solution is simply to offer the _option_ of playing a girl character. Then anyone can play whomever they want. :)

<comment><USER23> > Girls playing boys isn't so much normal as it's the only option they've had.

Those two things aren't mutually exclusive; in fact they're quite tightly related. Though that does raise the interesting point that the feedback loop has to be broken somewhere, and starting by adding female characters is as good as any.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This 12 year old girl is a better blogger than some of the people Washington Post has on staff. I am not exaggerating, I wish all their bloggers were this analytical.

<comment><USER24> Well yes. She is. By a substantial margin. It's incredible really, and I mean that in the strict sense of the word. in-credible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Aside from the point being made in the article, the language and expressions used in it suggest to me that it's gone through a fair bit of editing / authorship by an adult writer before being published. Either that or I am seriously underestimating the writing style of a 12 year old girl.

I understand that every article goes through a revision process. But it started by saying "I am a 12 year old girl" and I wonder how many filters the text and the thesis went through before being published. I just find something strange about adults using the identity of a child to inject their own words, if this is indeed the case.

<comment><USER7> Anyone would take it as an assumption that all WaPo articles are edited by WaPo editors. They are her "own words" as much as any article is the "own words" of any staffed journalist. If one is assuming malicious manipulation on the part of The Feminists and are looking for the guarentee of unfiltered words from children on the internet on topics like this, they will be disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'd like to make a romhack of the Legend of Zelda where you can play as Zelda. It should be a piece of cake, once someone draws the sprites.

Anyone good at drawing sprites who wants to lend a hand?

Edit: Looks like someone beat me to it!

[http://kennastuff.blogspot.com/2013/03/zelda-starring- zelda-...](http://kennastuff.blogspot.com/2013/03/zelda-starring-zelda- story.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> Am I wrong for thinking it sounds really antisocial for girls to have sleepover and then play on their phones? When I have a kid I really don't want them to be exposed to mindless consumption but it sadly seems like it's not going to be possible unless they're home schooled. At the very least, they're getting a very locked down smart phone.

<comment><USER27> I did that (as a boy) back in the day too. Pack up the PC and bring it over to a friend. Even when playing single player games we still had the experience of being immediately together, able to talk directly and freely, and able to show/help each other stuff. I suppose that's just the modern version of that.

<comment><USER28> I'm not an expert on what kids are doing on their phones, but my phone does not encourage interactions. When I packed my computer and took it to a friends house I didn't read Slashdot and play Simfarm alone, we'd hook up Starcraft or Diablo.

I think of the Pewdiepie episode of South Park where Ike and his friends each have their own device and each consumes their own media separately when I think of kids having sleepovers now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am a male. When I would play RPG games (not that I play them that much ..) I'd always choose a female character if there was any. Specially when I was younger.

I always thought it was the boys who wanted to play as a "kickass chick". e.g. Tomb Raider

<comment><USER7> I also often choose female characters. There is some demand from boys for female characters, but as with a lot of demand in the market I'm sure, game companies have little way to detect it, afaik

<comment><USER29> A successful game company would be in constant engagement with their user base, asking them about their favorite characters, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Poor girl. I really hope she has the strength and support necessary to survive the inevitable barrage of criticism, anger, threats and hate that gets directed at females speaking out on topics like this.

</comment><comment><USER31> A huge reason why there aren't as many "girl" characters is because most games are made by men. Thus the games naturally caters to themselves.

I'm male. Back when I experimented with game development, all the games I wanted to make involved the main character being male. It's not something I ever consciously thought about, it's just how it happened to be. Does that make me sexist? Of course not. I can make whatever the hell game I want. You can't tell an artist how his art has to look.

<comment><USER13> I don't think we make male characters because we are male, it's just because that's what we are used to. If the default character in nearly every game would be an emo girl, we would all make games with emo girls without thinking about it. Right now the default is the muscular white male, so that's what we all make if we don't think about it.

<comment><USER31> I think we just tend to make games that we relate to.

Look outside of games. If I told you to write a novel, would you write it from the perspective of the opposite gender? Personally my gut instinct is to write from the perspective of a male, because that's what I relate to most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So, has it completely escaped the attention of the makers of mobile games that almost 60% of gamers on mobile platforms are women? _Seriously_ \- It's kinda odd that one of the defining characteristics of the mobile gaming market doesn't actually seem to be reflected in what the industry is releasing.

It's one hell of an omission, and actually, there's got to have been a lot of opportunity missed.

And the icing on that cake? On mobile, female gamers are actually way more loyal players (42% higher 7-day retention on average versus males), they also spend about 35% more time in gaming appss, oh _and they 're also spending around 31% more on In-App-Purchases_ than their male counterparts too.

[http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/27/report-men-play-more- mmos-...](http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/27/report-men-play-more-mmos-fpses- women-rule-mobile-rpg/)

[http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/27/report-men-play-more- mmos-...](http://www.joystiq.com/2014/10/27/report-men-play-more-mmos-fpses- women-rule-mobile-rpg/)

</comment><comment><USER33> I like everything about this article (especially the careful research and evidence-gathering), except for this bit at the end:

      The lack of girl characters implies that girls are not equal to boys and they don't deserve characters that look like them.

I would ask the author (and readers) to consider more possible explanations.

</comment><comment><USER34> Let's see how long it takes for HN to insist that this is particularly normal and acceptable because most games are only played by boys, as folks did when this sort of thing came up with regards to the lack of female characters in games for grownups.

</comment><comment><USER35> I clicked on comments and were absolutely shocked that noone mentioned Anita Sarkeesian. In case you didn't hear, she Kickstarted a Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series of videos about gender representation in video games. Got a lot of harassment in return for those videos and when GamerGate came about that intensified enough to make her leave her home and cancel a speaking arrangement. In turn, she was interviewed on The Colbert Report.

Now a 12 year old have reached the same conclusion and if that's her real name on the article... alas I must say that was a dangerous thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER36> Is it bad this makes sense to me though?

If the makers of the game added a female character that would be extra cost from a platform, front end, and art perspective. Thereby pushing the cost of the game up for everyone when it's probably still mostly males who play the game.

So the cost of adding a female player is recouped by the people that want to play a female character.

If the makers added in a female character to begin with the game might cost a little more, but in app economics there seems to be a big difference in $1.

I wonder how many males that buy games only buy games that offer both genders as playable characters.

</comment><comment><USER37> Perhaps because it's more profitable to not give away what girls will buy, or they are simply not the target for the games where there are no female protagonists.

There's a popular view on hacker news of corporations which are nothing but money grubbing entities bent on doing anything for profit. This doesn't jive well with the view of these game corporations as mysoginistic entities out to repress girls intentionally or unintentionally.

<comment><USER7> "These kind of people on this website think one thing, and some other people on the website tend to think another thing, and I think they kind of don't work together despite being related to analyses that each vary wildly, and I think those two groups overlap" What? Your combining of two heuristic, subjective analyses of "popular views" to make some kind of point is unimpressive and non-productive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is definitely a good to remind everyone about what girlhood entails in the Western/English-speaking world. First some articles on games and then some general articles:

Games for Girls? - [http://thehussingtonpost.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/games-for- gi...](http://thehussingtonpost.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/games-for-girls.html)

Little girls deserve better than to be told to make themselves sexy - [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens- blog/2014/jan...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens- blog/2014/jan/10/little-girls-deserve-better-toys-sexism)

Girls, Boys, Feminism, Toys: Deborah Siegel and Rebecca Hains Discuss - [http://thesocietypages.org/girlwpen/2014/01/14/girls-boys- fe...](http://thesocietypages.org/girlwpen/2014/01/14/girls-boys-feminism- toys-deborah-siegel-and-rebecca-hains-discuss/)

Hers; The Smurfette Principle - [http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the- smurfett...](http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette- principle.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

What it's like being a teen girl - [http://web.archive.org/web/20140820073431/http://sodisarming...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140820073431/http://sodisarmingdarling.tumblr.com/post/34106027759/what- its-like-being-a-teen-girl)

teenage girls: "...they haven't been living, they've been performing." \- [http://www.metafilter.com/121190/teenage-girls-they- havent-b...](http://www.metafilter.com/121190/teenage-girls-they-havent-been- living-theyve-been-performing)

'I'm not a pilot, I'm a pilot's wife,' says 3 yr old girl - [http://reelgirl.com/2013/11/im-not-a-pilot-im-a-pilots- wife-...](http://reelgirl.com/2013/11/im-not-a-pilot-im-a-pilots-wife- says-3-yr-old-girl/)

Sexism 'is daily reality' for girls - [http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25138455](http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25138455)

Womanhood, girlhood and shared exclusion - [http://glosswatch.com/2013/12/16/womanhood-girlhood-and- shar...](http://glosswatch.com/2013/12/16/womanhood-girlhood-and-shared- exclusion/)

"Is my son smart?" "Is my daughter skinny?" Google Searches Reveal Parents' Gender Biases [http://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/is-my-son- smart...](http://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/is-my-son-smart-is-my- daughter-skinny/)

What Do Little Girls Really Learn from "Career" Barbies? - [http://peggyorenstein.com/blog/what-do-little-girls- really-l...](http://peggyorenstein.com/blog/what-do-little-girls-really-learn- from-career-barbies)

Report: Many girls view sexual assault as normal behavior - [http://www.salon.com/2014/04/14/report_many_girls_view_sexua...](http://www.salon.com/2014/04/14/report_many_girls_view_sexual_assault_as_normal_behavior/)

Cosmetic surgery and teenagers – a disaster waiting to happen - [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens- blog/2014/apr...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens- blog/2014/apr/28/cosmetic-surgery-and-teenagers-disaster-waiting-to-happen)

</comment><comment><USER38> What I fail to see is: why is the gender of the characters so important? It doesn't seem to make any difference on the mentioned games (unlike, eg: Diablo II, where the female characters had different skillsets from the male ones).

I've never understood why so many people feel compelled to play with a character with the same gender/race/etc as themselves.

What amazes me even more, is that people are willing to _pay_ for this.

<comment><USER39> I'm don't look like any of the video game characters from the games I play, regardless of gender.

An extreme diet and a lot of gym time and a set of stilts might get me somewhere near Agent 47, or binge eating and a wig might move me towards something E Honda-esque. IDGAF.

One of the MMORPGs I play as a female character coz I preferred the character model. She has green hair. In real life, I don't have enough hair left to warrant the pack of bleach and color.

It's not real. It's a video game. I'd be as happy playing as Katniss as I would Peeta, if those are the Hunger Game options.

Video games aren't the story of us. They're the story of someone else. That's the point.

I'm not a humanoid fox with a star fighter, I'm not an elf tasked with saving the world. I'm not a hired assassin or a warrior with long red hair fighting a tyrant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've seen plenty of female characters lately. I guess my definition of plenty is what others think of as absent?

<comment><USER30> That's a great anecdote.

I look forward to seeing the results of your research at a level at least as detailed as that performed by the 12 year old author of the article, to see how well the subjective recollection of your recent experience matches with objective data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Maybe they sell Girl characters because girls are willing to pay for them, and boys aren't?

Or because girls are willing to play as boys, and then pay to play as a girl?

But boys are unwilling to even play as a girl?

I prefer to look for rational (for example economic) reasons for things, and not assume everything is because of bias.

<comment><USER42> Perhaps at the _initial_ stage of analysis this situation is not "because of bias", but don't stop thinking after just one thought. Why are boys like that? (Ignoring the exception that would seem to have been made for Lara Croft.) Why are girls like that? Do you really think it's biology, or is there perhaps some cultural reason why one group of children would be somewhat comfortable undermining their identity while a different group cannot imagine doing so?

<comment><USER43> And then think a few thoughts further, to "How can I fix it?" and realize there's nothing I can reasonably do which isn't already being done, and, at my most engaged, I could cheer-lead established efforts being lead by people with more social capital than me.

So... consciousness raised and subsequently tamped back down, I suppose.

<comment><USER8> > there's nothing I can reasonably do which isn't already being done

You can't change the world by yourself but we all play a necessary role: Politely and respectfully speak up where people are not aware. IMHO no individual, no matter what their social capital, can substitute for people seeing and hearing these things from their peers. Also, we tend to be follow the herd; even in an angry stampede, one voice can make several others in the herd slow down and think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> How can you even tell a boy character from a girl character? It's not like they show the genitalia.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's clearly not true that female lead characters don't exist. What seems to be the issue for this girl is that they don't exist in games she actually wants to play.

I'd note that she complains about games where the protagonist has no identifiable gender, or is an animal. That's often done quite intentionally to dodge try to dodge this problem.

<comment><USER13> She analysed the top 50 Endless Running Games, that sounds like a fair sample of popular games, not just games she wants to play. She also agrees with you in the article that female protagonists exist, in exactly 46% of these Endless Running Games (but only in 15% free of charge). She doesn't complain about non-identifiable gender at all, she only quickly notes that those exist and then talks about the rest of the apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I remember playing PlayStation games with a friend when I was a kid, and he always seemed to pick a woman character to play if he could. So apparently there were enough woman characters in those games for that to stand out.

<comment><USER30> Sure, video games have had female characters for ages, take for example one of my favourite arcade games - Street Fighter II - Champion Edition.

You had Chun Li to choose from if you wanted to play as a girl, or Ryu, E. Honda, Blanka, Guile, Ken, Zangief, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat or M.Bison if you wanted to play as a guy.

<comment><USER46> I know what you mean. I once wanted to play as a pansexual elf/dwarf voyeurist who lives in a tree trunk together with minotaurs. Unfortunately my action-rpg only had two preset characters that were close to that, so I had to settle for a pansexual narcoleptic elf with a fondness for bull-riding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's articles like this that make me wonder if I should just always be sorry for being born a male. There are two kinds of responses to this article. Either you agree that all men are chauvinist pigs and only out to further the male-dominated agenda or you are a sexist bigot. In all honesty if the game developers only make a male characters, that's their prerogative, calling them sexist for not making a female character is extremely pretentious.

<comment><USER48> Did you read the article? It's written by a 12 year old girl pointing out that many popular games lack an option to select a female character.

Nowhere does it imply men are chauvinist pigs out to further a male-dominated agenda. The fact that you have extrapolated as such is probably more indicative of your own personality and prejudices than anything else.

No one is saying men should be sorry for being men. My takeaway is that the world would run a bit better if we all had a bit more empathy and more awareness of how our actions might perpetuate institutionalized biases.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for a payroll app - <AUTHOR>

I'm starting a very small startup and was advised to use something like Paychex.com. I was just wondering what other people used and what they're experiences were with them. Also, any other suggestions on housekeeping type software would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I have used Sage for my UK-based freelance company (which has never had more than 2 employees). I don't think it is the most intuitive piece of software but my accountant uses it too so it makes it easy to export data for him to do end of year accounts etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> We had a generally good experience with Paychex for payroll.

However, we have recently switched to TriNet - it's a bit more expensive, but a more comprehensive offering - full outsourced HR support for employees, great health care coverage, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> We use Peak Payroll at my day job. They have better customer service than ADP. No matter what provider you use you'll have a headache one day though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Simply Accounting up here in Canada... direct deposit through Beanstream... runs at $40 per mo...</comment>


John Gruber: I'll Tell You What's Fair - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2010/06/whats_fair <comment><USER2> I like John Gruber, and I upvoted this article, but this point:

> Look at those 2007 Android designs compared to the original 2007 iPhone. Now > compare a 2010 Android design to a current iPhone. Don't tell me Google's > mobile strategy hasn't changed.

I mean, he's totally right. It did change. But it wasn't to knock off Apple, it's because Google is building what consumers want and demand now.

Apple can say, "We pioneered that!" That's true. But they can't say, "We pioneered that - how dare they!" Because that's misplaced. Consumer preference has shifted, and yes, that's due in large part because of Apple's actions.

But Apple gets into trouble when they start thinking, "People want iPhones and these jerks are copying our iPhone" - because consumers don't necessarily want iPhones. They want well-designed devices which are fun and intuitive to use. Apple helped reveal that path, but they don't exactly get to plant a flag in the ground and say that's theirs now, forever, and how dare anyone else build well-designed devices with intuitive touchscreen interfaces.

Any other company I'd shrug at the misplaced righteous indignation, but Apple _really_ should know better, since they got into this with Microsoft over "look and feel" last decade over GUI. The reaction was the same, "How dare Microsoft try to give people Apple-like stuff!" But that's wrong. Microsoft gave people what they wanted, which was pretty and and more intuitive navigation.

It's like - when you introduce a new general standard, you can't really own it. It's out there. You get a massive head start, but then people will start using that standard and innovating on it. Traditionally what companies with the head start do is cut prices to lock in market share and make it impossible for people to compete, but Apple runs on crazy margins, so they refuse to do this, get angry at whoever is making something that fills similar needs for a lower price than them, and then lose their market. And now they're doing it again.

<comment><USER3> I think you might be missing the point.I'm not sure why you think that Gruber says or condones saying ["We pioneered that - how dare they!"]

Gruber explicitly says that it is fair for Google to compete with Apple and to copy the iPhone. He is making the point that it is reasonable for Apple to compete with Google (in ads).

Here is the excerpt

 _> >It wasn't unfair for Google to decide to compete directly against and copy ideas from the iPhone. That's competition. It may be angering to Apple, but it's not out of bounds._

 _> >What's goofy is the idea that Google would do this — to aggressively change Android from a BlackBerry/Windows Mobile competitor into an iPhone competitor — and that anyone would expect Apple not to retaliate, to instead just sit there and take it and allow all other aspects of their previous buddy-buddy corporate relationship with Google to continue as though nothing had changed._

<comment><USER2> > I think you might be missing the point.

I got his point, I just think he's wrong.

He says Google shifting from trying to compete from Blackberry/Microsoft to competing with Apple was basically an act of war, so Apple is justified in fighting back in the ad market.

I think that's wrong for three reasons - first, Google didn't go after Apple, they're building things people want. Their devices resemble Apple's more than Blackberry's because Apple is also doing what people want, whereas Blackberry isn't.

Second, it wasn't an act of war/betrayal/attack/breach of the Apple/Google business relationship (which Gruber implies).

Third, Apple are kind of being pricks pulling the rug out from a company after Google acquires them. They can do that because it's their business, but it's not justified as some sort of retaliatory measure. It is justified as business if they want, it's kind of prick-ish, but it's their right to do.

So, I understood, I just thought some of his points were wrong. I agree with him about not having comments on his site though - except in rare instances with a carefully built commenting community, comments become just noise and take away from a site. I like Gruber and have learned some really good stuff from him. I'm just not with him on this one.

<comment><USER4> That's kinda sorta not true tho' - BlackBerries account for 40% of the smartphone market. If you were going after the biggest slice of the pie, they're who you'd target.

<comment><USER5> I always end up wondering how can a company have so much of the market and so little of the buzz? (Of course, if you can _maintain_ that level of market share, it may not matter.)

<comment><USER6> They sell to corporations. Citigroup and similar companies give their employees blackberries and generic dell laptops. Their employees are sufficiently un-excited about it that there is no buzz.

<comment><USER4> I don't think that's true. People say "I love my BlackBerry". Regardless of where they got it, they form the emotional attachment to the brand. Jay-Z mentions his BlackBerry in his music. It's a lifestyle object, it says, I am taking care of business, baby. I am an insider, I have my act together, I make decisions. People call them CrackBerries because they're addictive.

But I've never heard anyone say "I love my Android", people talk about how clever it is, but the brand doesn't seem to resonate nearly as much, and it's not as clear what it says as a lifestyle accessory.

<comment><USER5> First, I love my Eris. Love it, love it, love it. Would sleep with it under the pillow, if I weren't so worried about its well-being.

Second, in my experience, people react to it with a "So you're a DIY-er, huh?" That is, people are aware, however vaguely, of the opensource/hacker vibe that the brand carries. I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "what it says as a lifestyle accesory," but I think it is.

(Btw, you had your +1 at "Jay-Z mentions...")

<comment><USER7> You live in the Bay area?

Up here in Mass, I tend to see Android devices being carried by unpleasant, street hoodlum types, which I guess to be a consequence of and reinforce the "iPhone knockoff" image associated with them.

<comment><USER8> I see this got into the negative, so let me upvote and point out that this is totally expected.

This is exactly how it was with the Danger handsets 5-7 years ago, simply because they were great for power-texters, had a camera and were way, way cheaper than BlackBerries. And yes, as a result they were great for conducting street business -- don't be all shocked if that's true of Loopt as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most interesting thing about all this is simply how personally Jobs and Gruber both seem to have taken the competition from Google. They genuinely seem to feel enormously betrayed by it. What this tells me is that both of them are now starting to acknowledge internally that Android really is an enormous threat to the iPhone and it is so in ways that they simply can't compete with. Google is putting out an operating system that is nearly as good as Apple's, runs on any hardware that anyone wants it to and is completely free. Apple can't hurt Google by undermining it profits because it doesn't make the hardware and it gives the software away. It really seems like an unfair fight. But what I think really hurts is Google invalidates Apple's core thesis, that control, power and lockdown are necessary for a consumer friendly operating system. Right as Apple is trying to justify not including Flash by saying it can't work properly on phones, Google is there adding it into Android and making them look like fools.

Incidentally Gruber seems to be conveniently overlooking a lot of history here. Hostilities really started when _Apple_ banned Google Voice from the iPhone. Prior to that things were pretty friendly, but after that Google realized it couldn't afford to play friendly with Apple - so they enabled multitouch in Android and things went downhill from there. Although it's a completely pointless and silly game to play if you really follow it back I think there is a very good argument that Apple started this whole falling out.

<comment><USER10> If you think back 25 years, Jobs has been here before with Microsoft, and it nearly killed his company. After all, Microsoft started out selling software, including on the Mac, and did a good job of it, and _got_ what Apple was doing! And then they made their own platform, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I'd say there is a clear parallel here, and consciously or subconsciously, that is why it is war -- because it was war last time, and they almost lost.

<comment><USER11> I think there's a very strong argument to be made that Windows nearly killed Apple because Jobs made the same mistakes he is making today with the iPhone platform.

Microsoft actively courted hardware manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. Apple sued anyone who tried to produce compatible hardware without their blessing.

Microsoft actively courted developers, by providing them with a strong toolchain and turning them loose on the platform. Apple sacrificed developers on the altar of user experience.

It's not much different today. Android is "fragmented" across who-knows how many different hardware sets, which has the dual result of making the platform less consistent for the benefit of letting consumers pick the hardware that does what they want at a price point they are comfortable with. Android favors developers almost to a fault; Apple's abuse of developers in order to preserve the user experience is legendary. If history is any indicator, Jobs should be very afraid. Apple has a tremendous first-mover advantage, and there is one very key difference in that they have the larger software base at the moment, but with the speed at which the Android platform is evolving and growing, it isn't difficult at all to imagine that Apple could find the iPhone eating dust in a few short quarters.

<comment><USER10> And here is where the battle lines are drawn this time:

> Microsoft actively courted hardware manufacturers of all shapes and sizes. > Apple sued anyone who tried to produce compatible hardware without their > blessing.

No-one is going to make a compatible iPhone, and Apple is also using patents to try prevent anyone making anything even comparable. On hardware, Apple is fighting harder than last time.

> Microsoft actively courted developers, by providing them with a strong > toolchain and turning them loose on the platform. Apple sacrificed > developers on the altar of user experience.

Now, Apple can actually stop you selling your software on their platform, in an instant - power only to be dreamed of in 1985! Add to that, the ban on Flash that is forcing developers to do twice the work or only support the dominant player (Apple.) They did the same with the Mac, no cursor keys and so on, but this time it's even stricter. No Google Voice, no way to run the same code on iPhone and Android, no apps that infringe on Apple's ever-moving goalposts...

Apple has not given up on the strategy they tried with the Mac. Oh no, it's just that they weren't strict enough and the stupid courts never ruled in their favour! Now they have a proper level of control, they can make sure the iPhone wins! BUWAHAHAHAHAAAA!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> John Gruber's arguments are painfully weak.

 _"It's not that Google changed course and got into the phone business, period. It's that they got into the iPhone's segment of the phone business. This is what Android looked like in 2007. Here's an actual hardware prototype from then. It didn't look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens"_

His highly flawed assumptions are

1\. That the hardware was the competition. 2\. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3\. HTC was not making touch screen phones before. 4\. If you see a successful trend you stick to something unsuccessful in order not to compete.

He goes on to say

 _"I don't believe Apple would have unveiled iAds. Maybe I'm wrong, and Apple would have done it anyway, because it always comes down to money, and there's soon going to be an awful lot of money in mobile advertising."_

 _sigh!_

He speaks about the absence of comments on his blog. I think he can do whatever he wants regarding that.

What surprises me is the amusing weakness of his arguments. This is the first time I have actually read a full blog post of his (I mainly see bits of his writing in rebuttals) and I go away wondering how he has been made into a thought leader of some sort.

<comment><USER13> > 1\. That the hardware was the competition.

Apple is a hardware company, that's what they see and compete on.

> 2\. Google bought a software company to compete in hardware 3. HTC was not > making touch screen phones before.

hardware and software go hand in hand. Google implemented a touchscreen core since the first public Android release and their base design (the N1) is fully touch-oriented. They clearly set up the Android platform aiming at the segment the iPhone also occupies, putting the platforms head to head. I don't see how you an claim otherwise.

<comment><USER14> Google made an OS that can support dozens of different hardware user interface variations. It is the phone makers that keep tailoring it along the lines of making it touchscreen-centric. Any one of the handset makers could come out with a keyboard-centric design at any time. The OS is rather agnostic on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _> It didn't look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens. ... What's goofy is the idea that Google would do this — to aggressively change Android from a BlackBerry/Windows Mobile competitor into an iPhone competitor..._

He's dividing phones into two categories here: BlackBerry/Windows Mobile-like phones and iPhone-like phones. This is a very questionable standpoint. It's like dividing tablets into Windows-like tablets and iPad-like tablets, and claiming that they're two separate markets.

On the contrary, tech hardware is constantly evolving. What's possible in 2010 wasn't possible in 2005, and what was possible in 2005 wasn't possible in 1995. In the past, it made sense to go with the benefits of a physical keyboard at the expense of screen real estate. Today, phones are extremely powerful, their screens run at high resolutions, carriers are more liberal, and mobile app developers abound. Google isn't switching markets to suddenly start competing with the iPhone; they're just keeping up with the times. Saying that Google should have "kept Android targeted at BlackBerry" is like saying the US should have focused on producing spears and arrows during the nuclear arms race.

<comment><USER16> It still makes sense to go with a physical keyboard if you're strapped for cash. Touchscreens big enough and responsive enough to handle a soft keyboard do not run cheap.

<comment><USER17> Physical keyboards definitely feel more accurate and nicer to type on. I could have gone touch only when I got my phone, but I specifically went with the Droid rather than wait for a Nexus One because I wanted a physical keyboard. I don't understand how people can use those on screen keyboards all the time. There's no feedback whatsoever.

<comment><USER16> I can understand it, but I too prefer my Droid's keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Gruber says nobody is arguing that there's a "How dare Google compete with Apple?" sentiment. That Apple merely took the gloves off and started taking the fight more seriously. But aggrieved sentiment is written all over Steve Jobs's reaction to Android.

'They want to kill the iPhone' -- remember that little gem? How did he know this? Because Android-based products were looking more and more like iPhones. But the reason for the convergent evolution of the two platforms is quite obvious: it's a winning design. It's a ridiculous justification for preemptive retaliation, on par with 'Saddam tried to kill my daddy'.

The reason Google decided to get involved in smartphones is the same reason Apple did: the internet. Before the current sheer-slab-of-touchscreen became the recognised form-factor of an internet-friendly phone, we waited years and years for Nokia, SE and Motorola and crucially, the carriers, to give us a device that could freely access the services and content that we knew were all around us. What did we get? Push email. The pressure was building and by 2005 the industry was ripe for disruption.

Apple's prestige, combined with the exclusive AT&T deal, was what forced the carriers to abandon their walled-garden ideal and take the internet seriously. The iPhone was an offer they couldn't refuse. Google could not have done that. The problem is that having freed us from the carriers' walled gardens, Apple now wants to take their place.

I think Jobs was being just a little disingenuous when he said Google wants to kill the iPhone. What he could have more honestly and accurately said is that Google wants to kill the iPhone OS's chance of achieving a monopoly position. Why do they want that? For the same reason they got into smartphone design: the internet.

</comment><comment><USER19> Normally I just ignore the articles that don't interest me - I assume they're for someone else. But I'm beginning to find these blog-war posts tiresome. There is no new information, no novel insight. Just he said, she said. Is this really the kind of content the HN community is looking for?

<comment><USER20> I agree wholeheartedly. I come here for information, and noise like this stuff dilutes HN's value just as surely as any non-hacker content like political articles, "8 Beautiful Pictures of Slugs", or "VB 101".

PG: any chance we could have a temporary (or permanent) ban on John Gruber posts?

<comment><USER21> Sometimes I think nerds aren't very intelligent at all. They're just technology fetishists with a large vocabulary who've learned to ape some of intelligent people's behavior.

+1 for banning DF links, because the comments here when a link to DF is posted are really depressingly stupid, and they make me suspicious of the quality of thinking behind everything else that's said on HN. Little else makes the fundamental defectiveness of the nerd mentality as clear as the reactions to John Gruber's writing.

This is like being in a room full of Rob Malda. The last time it was this obvious to me how defective nerd thinking is was Malda's reaction to the iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

<comment><USER22> _The last time it was this obvious to me how defective nerd thinking is was Malda's reaction to the iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."_

To be fair, that wasn't dissimilar to the response of a lot of people here regarding the iPad - quite a few of whom have gone on to say they were "wrong" after actually using one.

The first iPod really _did_ suck. Its sales were slow for ages and it didn't take off seriously until the color ones hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> People forget that devices like the iPaq with Microsoft's Pocket PC on them had touch-screens long before both the iPhone and Android.

Those people at Google are dicks for competing. It's like they are operating in capitalism or something.

But what I really hate is hypocrisy. Everyone understood why Google did it without blog-posts from self-proclaimed spokesmen.

In the case of Apple though, things aren't so clear ... and I would bet that Apple would've gotten into the advertising business anyway. They just picked a fight ... and you don't need brains to figure out why. Look around ... picking a fight is good marketing.

<comment><USER24> Apple didn't invent touchscreens. What they _did_ was master the use of touchsreens in mobile computing devices.

Apple are masters of quality of execution. That's what matters in making a device as successful as the iPhone and iPad, not whether you personally invented a particular component.

Ferrari didn't invent the car...

<comment><USER23> That wasn't my argument ...

I don't see customers blaming Lamborghini (a tractor manufacturer) for getting in Ferrari's turf. Neither of them invented the car, so why should anyone have any opinion?

I also couldn't see Ferrari entering the tractor manufacturing business, but if it did happen it would have happened only because tractor manufacturing was a very lucrative market, picking a fight with Lamborghini being only about marketing.

Also what really matters is ... why the fuck do people waist time on such arguments and why am I not working instead of arguing with you?

<comment><USER25> The difference is that Apple is banning Admob(bought by Google) from the iPhone apps just because it's owned by Google. The TOS state that no other company that develops a mobile OS can sell ads based on analytics. That's like Ferrari banning GPSes made by Lamborghini from being used in Ferrari cars just because they are made by another car manufacturer.

<comment><USER23> Well, yeah ... as I said it's just marketing.

Marketing is used to increase the visibility of a product or to hide its flaws.

In this particular case the elephant in the room is that Apple built something that looks and smells like a platform, but it's just a tightly controlled product line, probably with the intention of earning a monopoly on smartphones (both on hardware and on software).

And what better way to do it than ... getting people's attention on a holy war to purge the world of evil-doers like Google and Adobe, both of which have the capacity to reduce the iOS to a mere platform that can be replaced / be subject to anti-trust laws.

<comment><USER26> I love how Apple 'markets' applications from the App Store they don't like.

You're defining marketing to include the definition of the word 'ban'. It's rather silly IMO.

<comment><USER23> Why is every reply misinterpreting what I said?

Apple's actions taken against evil/incompetent Google/Adobe is just a marketing ploy meant to distract critics from its real problems and to increase its loyal following ... it's been done before by others, successfully even.

In contrast Google is quite transparent in their marketing scheme ... they want world domination/monopoly of their cash-cows, and being the forward- looking people that they are, they are eliminating/preventing intermediaries from coming between them and their customers.

THE BIG QUESTION when it comes to us (outside developers or customers) is "WHAT's IN IT FOR ME?".

Who do you benefit most? In my case it's Google as they are more open and willing to crack old monopolies that also get in my way (as a dev).

Other talks about who is right, who provoked whom, or how awesome or right Jobs or Larry or Sergey are (or how they shoot thunderbolts up their arse) ... are simply irrelevant, and the fact that I have to read such stupid articles (unfortunately I feel compelled for some reason) ... keeps me from learning new things or from working.

And it's not like I can avoid it ... these kind of articles are taking over as they provoke passionate (and silly) discussions (yes, marketers know that).

<comment><USER27> > In my case it's Google as they are more open and willing to crack old > monopolies that also get in my way (as a dev).

Well, Apple quite successfully introduced an app store that didn't require carrier approval for everything. You wouldn't have been able to get past that in the first place. Or did Google announce something like that in Android first? I can't remember now, but I doubt it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So we have an blog post that spends the first 700 words saying "Google started it" and then the latter 700 justifying why there aren't comments.

I'm not sure how this is interesting. Companies compete, and that's a good thing. Rambling about who started what is irrelevant.

<comment><USER29> You know, Gruber has implied that he's an HN reader in the past... I think his blog does have a comments section; it just has an orange stripe at the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Actually that's still bullshit from Gruber. Google may have made a touchscreen OS but they still deferred to Apple in many ways, most notably by not including 'pinch to zoom' and other UI that Apple claimed was theirs alone. Google stood by and watched as Palm jumped into direct competition with Apple and included that, lawsuits be dammed.

Apple broke the peace when they rejected Google Voice from the AppStore last summer (and retroactively removed and banned all the third party Google Voice clients already sold through the store). That was the first dickish shot of war--an act of unfair competition by Apple and AT&T--not this iAds business or Google making a phone OS

</comment><comment><USER31> By the same token, apple entered the cut-n-paste enabled, multi-tasking smartphone market. There is a word for slicing and dicing definitions until they come out just right for your predetermined conclusion: Casuistry. It is usually seen in religious debates, although we may not be very far from one with this article.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think this misses a big point about the issue - Apple's "App" strategy is changing the way people access information from using web browsers towards using tightly controlled proprietary Apple approved apps (iTunes was just the start.) Google are in the information access business and are moving to protect that business because the iOS ecology threatens it's dominance.

The hardware issue is a red herring, it's all about who controls the information<->user interface.

</comment><comment><USER33> Gruber gets it exactly backwards here. Google is pushing Android exactly _because_ it needs to mitigate the impact of moves like Apple's iAds. Google goal is protecting its search business from a potentially hostile monopoly, not killing Apple's phone business. Would it be smart of Google to sit on the sidelines while Apple becomes totally dominant in the mobile computing market and to trust Apple to leave all the money it could then make from advertising on the table?

It's interesting how profoundly the backgrounds of the company founders affect corporate strategy. Steve is fundamentally a salesman and thinks in terms of products. Google's heads are engineers and think first about platforms and protocols. Last time these two philosophies clashed Apple leaped out ahead but eventually lost to a cheaper, commodifiable platform. I expect this time will be no different.

</comment><comment><USER34> Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal.

And in particular by using large capacitive touchscreens with soft keyboards? That's just the way the world was going, you'd be as right to argue that they shouldn't use Wi-Fi or USB or Windowed UI or mice because Apple did them first.

(edit: just to be clear, I'm aware that Apple did none of these things first, but popularised and/or polished them to greater or lesser extents)

<comment><USER35> >Gruber thinks competing with the iPhone is "a dick move"? That seems an odd opinion, yet boldly stated as if it was normal.

Well they entered the phone business licensing their software for zero dollars. It's a fairly common thing that software companies do - Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to Microsoft, Microsoft keeps trying to do search and maps for god knows what reason when it isn't making them money.

If the software industry were more mature they wouldn't rise to the press's baiting about "killing" each other and just put resources into their core products and make those great.

<comment><USER23> > _Sun dumped a ton of money into OpenOffice just to be a pain in the ass to > Microsoft_

No, that was a defensive move to prevent Microsoft from completely taking over the software industry which would've made them irrelevant. You also forgot about Java, which original was targeted at consumers as a way to have multi- platform apps that will make the OS irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> He sounds like GLaDOS from Portal, when she realises you've broken free and are now a genuine threat.

 _It was a fun test, and we're all impressed at how much you won. The test is over. Come back_

 _This is your fault. It didn't have to be like this._

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Portal_(game)>

</comment><comment><USER37> Google's initial efforts were directed very much at RIM. RIM's guiding strategy never had anything to do with form factor. It was always to provide the killer experience for email, with special attention to corporate email. Android took a shot at RIM by focusing on gmail integration and a great email experience (including frequent polling to get the same effect as push email) to the detriment of other areas of the user experience. It didn't have a focus on corporate, but they also knew that more and more people were using traditionally personal email services for business purposes (and they did know immediately that it was necessary and were working on exchange support). While they still had room to improve the email experience, they provided what many considered the best mobile email experience from the G1 onward. They then continued to improve everything else in the direction of the industry bests, which yes included UI inspiration from iphone.

Also, the idea that early hardware used for developing software is any indication of the ultimate direction is ridiculous. Touch interface is one of the last things you're going to tack onto an operating system. Even if it is a core part of your user interface, you need to get all the underlying parts you never want the user to know about working first, and that is just alot easier with hard interfaces.

</comment><comment><USER38> There's a big difference between competing with another business in a market on a level playing field (e.g. Android vs iPhone) and essentially deciding to ban another company in a sector from competing with you (e.g. Admob vs iAd). I think the prior is fair game, whereas the latter is anticompetitive (even as retribution for daring to compete on a level playing field).

</comment><comment><USER39> "We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business."

They aren't selling the operating system are they? therefore really the business is advertising, as it has always been with Google, and Apple has just entered that business.

<comment><USER40> That's distinction is not really all that important in this context. Google wants to shape the future of the mobile web in order to sell ads – but in that process they could easily crush Apple. That's why Apple fights back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> So Apple stops playing nice with Google because Android is competing in the same playing field as iOS...

Then I guess it's kind of insulting to Microsoft's mobile division that Apple is now playing nice with Bing. :)

</comment><comment><USER42> The part about comments? Right on. Don't let the abscess of humanity troll against everything they dislike on _your own_ website. Anyone who thinks you must have comments to be legitimate is under a false sense of entitlement.

Seriously. Just _write_. Comments in general are a distraction to productivity; comments on blogs are no exception.

<comment><USER43> With one caveat: blogs with the stated intention of creating community/being a community gathering point _has_ to have comments. I run a blog that helps independent writers publish their work online. I tried Gruber's advice, once - and it backfired, badly.

So, in a nutshell: soapboxes are good, but not when you want to create community.

<comment><USER44> Comments on a blog do not a community make. I run a news site about a band, and I've never allowed comments. However, the site is closely affiliated with an entirely separate message board, which our staff are regular contributors to.

I see it in kind of the same way Gruber sees it, but without nearly as much hubris and ego. To me, it's my website, and I prefer it to be an editorial publication. I select who writes for the site, because I want a higher quality end result.

That said, some sites benefit from public comment. I remember being ticked off when News.com got bought out by CNet because they eventually turned off comments, and often times the comments helped balance out the ridiculous spin in the articles posted to the site.

<comment><USER43> > Comments on a blog do not a community make.

Agreed. Perhaps a better generalizing statement to make would be: community cannot exist where there is no channel for user feedback. You have a forum, I have comments. Both are mediums for reader expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of > the site.

This is the funniest sentence in the history of the web.

<comment><USER46> Gruber at his best!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Google made a smart phone OS based on desktop OS, so did Apple. They were both aimed at the do anything smartphone market. Blackberry and Windows Mobile were in that market already.

It doesn't really matter what the early Android prototypes looked like, since Google doesn't do that bit, the free market does.

</comment><comment><USER48> Nothing like a post on Daring Fireball to keep the iPhone/Android loyalty war on the front page of HN.

Does any of this really matter?

</comment><comment><USER49> How about we just add another link at the top of the HN page, just to the right of Submit, that contains an rss feed of daringfireball?

<comment><USER50> Only if you believe DN links are less worthy of front-page status than anything else on the homepage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> From the end user perspective (at least this end user) The competition to widen access to ads and and further to create rich ads is something i hope both companies will not see much success in.

At present, Browsing via mobile is relatively slow, if you dont have unlimited data plans, then it follows that you will pay for Ad traffic, rich media ad traffic will make this problem worse.

The killer feature for me is no advertising, and I am willing to pay for apps to avoid them, An adblocker on the native phone browser is a killer feature for me. One that at least in theory is easier to get on the android platform then on the iphone.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's wrong to start Apple's foray into mobile with the iPhone. They partnered with Motorola on a phone before that and have absorbed a lot of knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER53> I doubt it's a bad move with android as John says it may be. They could have avoided the phone market, let Apple progress with less competition and stayed close partners. Then Apple would have had all the power and could pretty much create their own ad platform at their choosing.

Kinda like how Zynga is at the mercy of Facebook despite making them profitable through there heavy advertising on the platform.

</comment><comment><USER54> So Google is evil because they added a touch screen to their phones? Only Apple has the right to make phones without keyboards?

<comment><USER40> Sorry, but where does Gruber say that they are evil? All he says is that they started competing with Apple in a – uhm, to quote him – dickish way and that therefore, it is perfectly alright when Apple then also competes dickishly.

He does not claim that being a dick when competing is wrong or evil. To quote him: "It wasn't unfair for Google to decide to compete directly against and copy ideas from the iPhone. That's competition. It may be angering to Apple, but it's not out of bounds."

<comment><USER54> Ah, I stopped reading before that line. But then, I guess I don't see the whole point of the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I don't get why he attached his "comments off" opinions at the end of this piece, but I feel like Gruber's opinion there is just as interesting as the first half the piece. It's been a long standing opinion of his, sure, but he got down and stated it clearly in this post.

</comment><comment><USER56> Give me a break!

From my point of view - a man who might write mobile app someday - all these fuss and arguments are totally wasted energy and karmatically ugly.

Apple is running their monarchy, and I should choose, as it becomes relevant, whether to set up an embassy at that territory or not (in a form of app at appstore).

If the business interests would justify it, I'll be in, if not, out, simple dimple.

Why do we have to read about all these emotions and fights every single day, why? Isn't coding/hacking itself dramatic enough that we have to bring in strange boosters?

</comment><comment><USER57> You all are being too emotional about this. Corporations don't act that way.

You eat my lunch, I eat yours, and kick you in the balls.

</comment><comment><USER58> What people in this thread seem to ignore is John's argument is that Google made a _dick move_ in the context of the two companies having shared a tight buddy buddy relationship and a mutually beneficial strategy. _that_ is why it was a backstabbing and is generating the retaliation.

</comment><comment><USER59> DARING FIREBALL : STEVE JOBS :: FOX NEWS : SARAH PALIN

</comment><comment><USER60> I dislike Gruber more than I did because he's one of those guys who ascribes a huge corporation emotions. Eric Schmidt left the Apple board because if they are competing it would be a conflict of interest and a legal problem between the companies and their investors. Get over it, these are business decisions. Gruber has been saying what he thinks Apple might like to hear for a while. Too bad Apple is a huge company and not a teenage girl

</comment><comment><USER61> John Gruber totally rips off Steve Jobs' LaF, but that's okay because he's not competing with Jobs.

Seriously though, it's interesting how people tend to come to emulate their role models in this way. You can see the Jobsian 'tone' used by a lot of people who agree with him. It's a very 'no bullshit', 'here's the bottom line' style that can sound dismissive and, dare I say it, a little arrogant.

<comment><USER18> Even the way he describes his site design in comparison to others' sounds like he sees himself as the Apple of punditry:

'I don't care what's out of place. I care about what's best.'

'My goal is for not a single wasted word to appear anywhere on any page of the site.'

And the best bit:

'...demands from entitled people who see that I've built something very nice that draws much attention, and who believe they have a right to share in it. They don't.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article is easily defeated by a simple observation. Locking out a competitor from your platform is hardly competition. Maybe "artificial competition". Stealing/copying/borrowing features is the age old cycle of innovation and competition in the tech industry.

Pointing fingers about stealing ideas is ridiculously silly, no wonder Gruber is wasting his precious word count on it. But to defend Apple's draconian policies as good in the eyes of competition is simply too much for me to hear without the bullshit-ometer going off.

</comment><comment><USER26> Apple locking Google out is the same thing as Android competing with iOS. Yup. What's new?

One side is competing with the other. The other side is locking them out of the platform on an application (Google Voice) and an advertising level.

What if Google said they weren't going to allow Apple apps on Android or allow iAds on Android (not that I think either would ever happen in a million years).

I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's actions while pointing fingers at Google.

<comment><USER14> > I simply can't fathom the double think that Gruber uses to excuse Apple's > actions while pointing fingers at Google.

I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something like Stockholm syndrome.

At this point, how many months or years away from this dependency would he need, before we could start trusting that he is giving us independent opinions that are truly from him; not things that are, as likely as not, what he needs to believe.

<comment><USER62> > I wonder what it must be like living with the knowledge that your ongoing > fame is so dependent on friendly leaks and peaks from a patron known for > ire-based reversals of largesse. His career keeps him prone to something > like Stockholm syndrome.

Just as an example: I think a lot of people forget that a couple of years ago, Apple was very friendly with Gizmodo. That started to sour when Gizmodo ran some pieces speculating on Jobs' health, and has only deteriorated since - Gizmodo was cut out of prelaunch iPad access entirely and we all know the iPhone 4 saga by now.

Apple is very comfortable with being the ones to taketh away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Google being influenced by the iPhone and developing Android accordingly into a very viable contender is fair play, they provide competition which is good for consumers but for Apple to basically lock them out of iPhone app advertising eliminating competition from a big player is bad for consumers/developers.

</comment><comment><USER64> I think people are not making enough fun of the "be a man, allow comments" claim.</comment>


I left Vancouver–and I feel fine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.officehours.io/i-left-vancouver-and-i-feel-fine/ <comment><USER2> Cities are for overseas people to own.

Regional towns and country areas are for citizens and permanent residents to live.</comment>


Show HN: Redis compressed values module using Zstandard - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chadnickbok/redis-zstd-module <comment><USER2> Simply awesome dude - I'm betting this will get a lot of love from Redis users.</comment>


AT&T Helped N.S.A. Spy on an Array of Internet Traffic - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-nsa-spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Cases like this reinforce my opinion, that there is an increasing demand to educate consumers how to prevent getting data leaked to government institutions like intelligence services. Especially the consequences of picking the wrong service provider.

Luckily I am now in a position where I am fully responsible and aware of the routes my data takes. Yet we as a B2B ISP constantly get requests by intelligence services to provide information regarding our customers. Strangely they always assume that's totally okay to -just- ask for the data, instead of going the formal way. If we demand the judicial permissions they always rant about emergencies and so on. We can't help but follow the law, and the law disallows us to keep specific data for more than 60 days. I am really curious about how many ISPs voluntarily provide their customer data without asking for judicial permission beforehand.

Such conversations are coming around 2 or 3 times a week.

<comment><USER3> There's one cellular provider which has the obligation under CALEA to do wiretaps. They comply with the law strictly, which annoys the FBI.

First, CALEA requires that the company provide a "senior official" as a point of access for law enforcement, and a backup 24/7 contact. Their senior official is their general counsel, and the backup is another lawyer. It's not their network operations center. Their general counsel wants to see a warrant, and checks back with the court to make sure it's valid. This is the way to do it; bring in Legal.

There's a procedure for "emergency requests" in advance of a warrant under CALEA. This telco immediately faxes the law enforcement requester a brief form to fill in for those. It requires name, police department, office address, badge number, and a brief explanation of why there's no warrant yet. The form to be signed by the law enforcement official contains a statement that the official will provide a warrant within 48 hours, and in the event that they fail to do so, their department will take full responsibility for their actions, including indemnifying the telco against any costs and damages. That's followed by a statement that in the event the law enforcement organization fails to authorize the actions of their official, the official will be personally responsible for said costs. The telco also reserves the right to disclose requests for which a court order does not follow.

This discourages fake "emergency" requests. Get your legal people to draft something like that. The key to this is that law enforcement's interface to your company should go through your legal department.

(I used to have a link for this, including their forms, but can't find it now. Can anyone else find it? )

<comment><USER2> I am very interested in these forms and would be grateful if someone could provide a link to them. If they're watertight, we could probably reduce some overhead with them. Although I dislike the idea of using an employee as an "responsibility-shield" for failing government agencies.

<comment><USER4> I am interested in discovering the carrier with the most onerous forms in order to procure service from them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where have you all been?

[http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70...](http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908)

10 years old and not even close to the oldest evidence.

<comment><USER6> This was an interesting and early revelation, but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this closet really meant. We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s., every email, etc... We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed and that this closet was just a way to make targeted surveillance easier.

<comment><USER7> > but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this > closet really meant.

> We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the > u.s.

> We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed

All lies. This was well covered on slashdot when it happened. We all knew exactly what it meant.

Snowden's release was iron clad and incontrovertible, which was refreshing, but it also detailed the extent to which private tech companies outside of AT&T were aiding the federal government in their illegal activities.

Even the most paranoid nutbag commenting on those old slashdot threads couldn't imagine how bad it was going to get. Reality outpaced the conspiracy theorists.

<comment><USER8> This is my recollection too. I think everyone held their breath hoping we'd pull away from the edge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Worth reading: ProPublica (who co-published with NYT on this story) has an explainer of how they followed the trail of documents to break this story:

[https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence- leadi...](https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leading-to- atts-partnership-with-the-nsa)

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this really a surprise to anyone? We've known that the N.S.A. has gotten (or coerced) support from communications companies in the past, and AT&T in particular (the article mentions it going back as far as 2003 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)).

Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in 2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's up to you to protect yourself.

<comment><USER6> Spying on the u.n. based on terrorism legislation is a revelation. Recording of all telephone conversations in the u.s. is a revelation. Recording of all emails, skype, sms, etc is a revelation.

Before discovery of that room everyone knew that there was close cooperation between the telecoms and the government, but we had no idea it was this close and we were shocked at especially the recording of all phone conversations in the u.s.

<comment><USER11> Even though we had pretty thorough proof of this with ECHELON? Including the EU parliamen report into echelon; and the stuff about the US using it to provide commercial advantage to their aerospace industry?

Risk assessment has always been part of security. And people have always said that you should probably assume a well funded government can and does read everything. This was more of an assumption, but the fact that governments do listen to everything should not have been a surprise.

<comment><USER6> No, not really with ECHELON. That would have required all phone calls in the u.s. to be routed outside of the u.s., and really the only cooperating country was the UK, even though Canada was part of the group. It wasn't practical to route all communications from the u.s. through the UK, and it probably would have been noticed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The NSA's giant database will be breached. It's only a matter of time. It could be state-sponsored (e.g. like the OPM theft), or it could be due to the NSA's own lack of internal security oversight. Maybe not this year, maybe not next. I certainly won't have anything to do with it. But it'll eventually happen. What then?

<comment><USER13> What makes you think they are not already breached?

By any available evidence, these guys can't even maintain a simple download counter on their wiki. A random IT contractor like Snowden was already gone for a month and they had no idea. I think they still have no clue what he has.

All the science fiction gives this very distorted picture when really the people working at the NSA are private-sector leftovers, and even if someone with half a brain slips into their ranks, a layer of ignorance and government inefficiency will promptly suffocate them. It's a good thing, their incompetence is our only protection.

<comment><USER14> Wow, if you really believe this, you've got another thing coming.

<comment><USER15> Do you even have anecdotes to back this up? I'd prefer some kind of data, a citation or a revelation from you, but even anecdotes allow me to consider internal consistency.

Lately, I'm becoming very suspicious of infosec people who imply huge threats, or mystical capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This should surprise no one. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

<comment><USER17> You should also be unsuprised to have it pointed out that your surprise level is wholly is irrelevant and rather silly to mention. Murder is unsurprising and we don't ignore it. The "And this surprises you?" Meme response should always be "Adults are talking."

</comment></comment><comment> white-flame > At the same time, the government has been fighting in court to keep the > identities of its telecom partners hidden.

And because of that, we can trust nobody, and work to encrypt everything at the most fundamental layers we have access to. Good for individual privacy, but you can't help but note that the NSA continues to shoot itself in the foot in pursuing its goals.

There has to be willful ignorance at the top of the food chain. They can't believe this stuff actually works, or is in any way actually related to national security. But it must be so, so they double-think themselves into believing it. Having met people at that level in other government branches, I can't see it as anything else.

</comment><comment><USER18> My favorite part of this was the not 1 but /3/ AT&T U-verse advertisements embedded in the mobile page.

"Gee guys, any idea why our conversion rates are so low?"

</comment><comment><USER19> It must be so nice for AT&T; making money twice on the same customer.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's interesting that they released this report on a Saturday, when markets are closed.

<comment><USER21> let's keep it on the front page until Monday

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What we really need is less centralization and more communities able to invest in 21st century infrastructure. We might be too far gone, though.

Take this for example: I am a student at the University of Wisconsin. There's a nonprofit/cooperative in Wisconsin called wiscnet [1]. They provide(d) libraries and schools with Internet. A Wisconsin telecom association (mostly backed by AT&T) was able to use their lobby to push it out. Millions in infrastructure made useless because it was argued to be anticompetitive.

The story is told much better by Ars. [2]

[1]: [http://wiscnet.net/](http://wiscnet.net/)

[2]: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin- public-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public- internet-fights-telecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off/)

<comment><USER23> I think a lot of states have (if not active, legacy) Internet backbones where schools and such had connectivity back in the day before the "general public".

Oklahoma's is "OneNet"[1], and we had a T1 at usao.edu back in '93 [2].

[1] [https://onenet.net/](https://onenet.net/)

[2] I set up the very first USAO web site as a summer Independent Study project in '95, running a web server on our VAX 4700. People told me "You have to have a Sun box to run a web server!" and I proved them wrong. It was a fun 9-week gig, because the actual work only took me a couple of weeks, including creating a HTML version of the Student Handbook. Bits of the site I created persisted for almost a decade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "We don't comment on matters of national security"

Wow, they really think that's what they're doing, don't they? Nothing above and beyond here, right?

BTW, I was actually surveyed by AT&T on the phone when the news that they were doing this first broke over a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER25> Geez, what a yawner. This has been either assumed or an open secret for decades.

</comment><comment><USER26> "news": The "Alphabet" companies help one another.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T. AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is profit and loss.

The snowden releases cost u.s. tech companies $100B+, including a 10% drop in Cisco quarterly revenues. Hopefully this continues as multinationals continue to move their business outside the u.s.

Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this.

<comment><USER27> It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.

<comment><USER28> Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity?

Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.

<comment><USER29> Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.

<comment><USER30> Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.

<comment><USER31> Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?

<comment><USER32> That was the CIA.

<comment><USER31> The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Could the actual physical infrastructure be decentralised? At least in Citys?

</comment><comment><USER34> Cuckoo's nest?</comment>