Gmail – some users being signed out of their accounts unexpectedly - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1187538 <comment><USER3> Can confirm this happened to me this afternoon on my android. Went into a full panic mode. I refused to type passwords since I was worried it might have been another app imitating Google and I had no recollection of any action that would have required me to sign in again. I made sure that my password was correct on my laptop browser to ensure that I was not fallen for a account compromise. Eventually restarted the phone, ran lookout security app and then typed it on smartphone.

<comment><USER4> > I refused to type passwords since I was worried it might have been another > app imitating Google and I had no recollection of any action that would have > required me to sign in again

Same for me! So follow-up question, how do we know if an android app is the real deal? I opened the app switcher and it certainly said "Google Play Services" on top of the window asking for my password, and had the correct logo, but could other app present itself in the same way?

<comment><USER5> > how do we know if an android app is the real deal?

You don't.

Not that it really matters, if you care about security you shouldn't be using Android in the first place.

<comment><USER4> Don't let the perfect be the enemy of good. Or in other words, I try to adjust my opsec/persec to a realistic threat model, not to my worst dystopian nightmares.

<comment><USER5> This is not about dystopian nightmares, this is about an OS where it's exceptional to EVER get an update, let alone get it in time.

If you go out to a shop and buy 100 Android phones, at least 99 will be running outdated OS versions with known security issues and no updates available.

<comment><USER6> But why aren't these Android phones getting hacked left and right, everywhere? Any idea?

Where I am (the Netherlands), Android is way more popular than iOS--I'm not attaching value judgement to popularity or otherwise, nor am I particularly doubtful of your claim that the average (cheap) Android phone is running an outdated version.

But if that's the case then what is going on?

Are they not juicy targets for hackers? (tons of personal information, botnet possibilities, seems valuable to me)

Or are they in fact being hacked quietly and we're not hearing much about it? Is everyone's cheap phone already part of a botnet and nobody realizes?

Is it perhaps that the exploits require physical proximity that hackers don't deem worth the risk?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Update from Google status page:

We're still actively working to resolve issues with Identity/Authentication. Future updates will follow when there is significant progress to report.

To summarize; some long-lived OAuth tokens have inadvertently been invalidated. This may affect the following Cloud services and will manifest as authentication errors:

Cloud APIs using OAuth tokens, and related services that use them

gcloud SDK

Cloud Storage gsutil

Cloud Dataflow

Note: not all customers are affected by this.

OAuth tokens may be recreated by running the following commands:

$ gcloud auth application-default login

$ gcloud auth login

[https://status.cloud.google.com/](https://status.cloud.google.com/)

<comment><USER8> It's odd that the status pasted in the parent has disappeared from [https://status.cloud.google.com/](https://status.cloud.google.com/) , as the page seems to be designed to keep event history - but it's not in the history. I can still find it in Google's own cache, though - in the snapshot of the page as it appeared on Feb 24, 2017 11:19:38 GMT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually ended up wiping my phone because this coincided with a weird set of text attachments I got from someone who didn't knowingly send them. At that point I wasn't sure that my phone wasn't being keylogged, so I wiped to be on the safe side.

<comment><USER10> As in InfoSec guy, I confirm you did the right thing. Better be safe than sorry!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> OT: they mention that they've "gotten reports about some users being signed out of their accounts unexpectedly". I'm wondering how they get any such reports since it's almost virtually impossible to contact anyone at Google.

<comment><USER12> It happened to google employees too (my guess).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We noticed this affecting tens of thousands of users on Zapier last night, causing us to wonder if we'd shipped a critical bug. Zaps using Google apps are still paused[0] while we wait it out.

[0] [https://status.zapier.com/](https://status.zapier.com/)

<comment><USER14> Anecdotal, but I know of roughly two dozen users that are not using Zapier in any way that were also affected by this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Got a pop up on my mobile. How to check the pop up was not impersonated by a different app?

<comment><USER16> On some versions of android if you long press on the popup it will show you which app it's from. This obviously doesn't work for not-android and older versions, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had this issue too. I'm already on two-factor with Authenticator, so it wasn't a big deal. Since nothing had changed with my account, and the device history looked proper, I assumed it was a token expiration deal. Which is what it turns out to be. Good to know that was the problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> The nicest thing about this affair is that Google Play Services kept popping out every few seconds asking me to enter the password while I was driving (using Waze).

Is it that whatever the issue that caused all this kept happening again and again every few seconds, or is it that once Google Play Services determines you have to login back, it intentionally nags you making your mobile hard to use?

</comment><comment><USER19> No surprise that I've only heard about this by reading it on HN, despite the fact that I had this problem yesterday. I consider it an operational failure when customers are the first ones to identify issues, double fail when they are not proactively made aware of issues that WILL affect them.

Like others, I also had a moment of extreme panic where I thought something had been compromised, as it also seems to have coincided with an issue where Google Voice SMSes (2FA) were not going through.

</comment><comment><USER20> Happened to my work account and my personal. Got a scary notification on my phone telling that "Something changed on my phone and I need to login again"

</comment><comment><USER21> So Google does not know the reason but tells us to stay calm? I was and am creeped out majorly by this.

<comment><USER22> Better than telling you to panic, right?

<comment><USER23> Well even if there is no immediate danger, still it "proves" that Google has problems controlling its security and/or software engineering process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I assumed this was a reset from Google due to the Cloudflare stuff, but seems like it wasn't?

<comment><USER25> I would be surprised if Gmail sent any tokens or credentials via Cloudflare

<comment><USER26> Fear might be shared email/passwords since thats really common.

<comment><USER27> What's the fear? Aren't all passwords encrypted on the server side?

<comment><USER28> But if an in-transit plaintext password is leaked by CloudFlare, server-side encryption is irrelevant.

(... that said, it's not like revoking sessions would impede a password- holding adversary...)

<comment><USER29> It would for users that have 2FA enabled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Happened to me on mobile and work. And my @google account - we truly are dogfooding :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it connected to Cloudflare incident?

<comment><USER31> No. Just coincidental timing.

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=11...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=1139#c25)

Gmail doesn't use cloudflare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Title is misleading - I wouldn't say Gmail. It's disinformation. It's generic Google Account issue. I got logged out from my Android device suddenly. Logging in a few hours later worked out just well.

</comment><comment><USER33> [https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity](https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity)

>10:44

>Visited Sign in using backup codes - Accounts Help

I don't recall signing in using backup codes..

Nothing odd appears in [https://myaccount.google.com/notifications?pli%3D1](https://myaccount.google.com/notifications?pli%3D1)

<comment><USER34> That's the page linked from this post, not an actual sign in

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Related - OnHub & Google Wifi devices reset due to Google Accounts bug: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/googlewifi/...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/googlewifi/38Q-v9lBDRg)

</comment><comment><USER36> A lot of people probably left with accounts created for their Android phones and no idea what their password is.

</comment><comment><USER37> Happened to me too, pain to log back in on google play (not allowed to paste password in)

It initially gave me a message that something had changed and I needed to log in again, I can't remember if that was on outlook (yes, I use outlook to get my gmail) or on google play.

<comment><USER38> > not allowed to paste password in

This kills me oh so very much.

<comment><USER39> AutoHotKey

<comment><USER37> Is that something for phone or computer? Because I was talking about my phone.

Would prefer if keepass2android had some autotype feature built in for android :D

<comment><USER40> It has. Don't use clipboard to propagate the password but use keepass2android's keyboard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This happened to me too. And having 2FA enabled makes it a pain when you are logged out of _all_ your devices. I checked my usage history but could not find anything. And this article really does not explain why.

<comment><USER42> I got logged out from multiple accounts on multiple devices. Today is being a pain :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Happened on my phone and my Mac. I thought it was odd but wrote it off to a developer having programmed a computer to be stupid somewhere. Turns out I was right.

</comment><comment><USER44> Incidentally, recovering a google account password from a phone, when you have access to said phone but haven't given them the phone number, doesn't work. I kept being told that google will send a token to the phone, and got a dialog saying 'do you want to log in?', i pressed yes, and nothing good happened.

Fortunately it was a test phone with a throwaway google account - <USER2> i'd have known the password.

<comment><USER45> I suspect that their phone recovery service's capacity is overloaded right now with everybody else trying the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder whether this is why every Google router (OnHub, Wifi) on Earth shut down about 2PM PST yesterday and requires a factory reset to get running again.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/googlewifi/38...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/googlewifi/38Q-v9lBDRg)

</comment><comment><USER47> I was booted off YouTube streaming on my AppleTV. Then my main account disappeared from iOS GMail app, even though a secondary GMail account was still there.

Was afraid my accoutn was hacked. My GMail password is unique and quite long compared to my other pw so I doubt someone could find it.

I added the account again on the iOS GMail app and then signed in YouTube and it was back to normal... hmm.

</comment><comment><USER48> At google's scale, it seems "some" === 10 million :-)

</comment><comment><USER49> This happened to my Android phone yesterday while I happened to be going around updating my passwords all over the Internet because the ones where I had used the same one were getting attacked left and right over the past few weeks. I never used that password for Google but I thought just maybe there was a forgotten access point to my account where I had. It sent me into quite a panic for 10 minutes or so. Needless to say, I'm now using a password manager for everything, even on sites where I wouldn't normally care if someone got in.

</comment><comment><USER50> Happened on both my Macs roughly 12h ago, on two out of three accounts. Had 2FA configured for Google Authenticator, so took the time to refresh the OTP and bind it to 1Password instead.

</comment><comment><USER51> Same here … I have a few Google accounts and on most devices, I was logged out (and I use the same Google account usually more than once on a device, so today is going to be busy!).

</comment><comment><USER52> This happened to me. Since I've had my Google account breached once (and my mother had an awful experience), I have 2FA enabled... but the text messages weren't arriving (I guess Google was swamped or something).

I fortunately had the ten backup codes.

I'm really happy to hear it wasn't another attack on my account. It also reminds me that Google can be unresponsive :( and how much I depend on them (both my Gmail and my Android were warning me)

</comment><comment><USER53> Only happened on my phone, not desktop/laptop. Haven't logged in as it could be some sort of attack. Any updates/info? Is a phone wipe in order?

</comment><comment><USER54> Happened to all my email accounts I have on my Android phone. I thought this was a planned, intentional change by Google and so I logged in with 2FA...

</comment><comment><USER55> When this happened to me on my mobile; I had to dig up the password from my password manager. Then it asked me to NFC/tap my physical security key (YubiKey). Then the screen disappeared and all was well.

I never seen that flow before with the security key usually it's the SMS/GAuthenticator.

Still haven't fixed my email clients on my Mac, lol.

</comment><comment><USER56> Definitely a wild weekend for InfoSec everywhere.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I actually thought that some sort of fishing attack is going on because my old password didn't work and I have to reset it.

</comment><comment><USER57> Happened to me too this morning, all my devices (mobile, laptop, desktop) all signed out :S I thought something fishy going on.

</comment><comment><USER58> On my wife's iPhone, it asked her to enter her password again and the weird thing is that it now shows as a new device, called "iPhone" instead of "Cristina's iPhone" as it was before. A few hours later it happened on my Galaxy S7 as well but re-entering passwords fixed it.

</comment><comment><USER59> I don't believe I'll be signing in again on my Android tablet. I've installed the apps I want, and being signed in is an extra risk, so I'll just curse Google every day for making me work around their begging me to sign in again, instead.

</comment><comment><USER60> Same happened to me last night, but only on my phone. It said something "had changed" in my account wtf.

</comment><comment><USER61> I had this hit me today. It happened right after I had disconnected from a VPN connection and connected directly to the internet. I assumed it was caused by a sudden change in "location". I guess not. I use 2FA, so I'm assuming I'll be ok. Maybe I should change my password.

</comment><comment><USER62> Also had this happen to me and had my parents call me asking about it. A few warning bells did go off in my head, but as far as I could tell it all looked legit. Kind of disturbed by the lack of communication by Google though, since it seems to be affecting so many people.

</comment><comment><USER63> I had this happen on two of my devices: Android Phone and laptop (macbook).

Seeing as it happened on two different devices, I have little reason to believe it's some sort of Android Malware. Attempting to login with my old password on incognito is a success.

Compromise or not, I recommend changing passwords.

</comment><comment><USER64> This happened to me also. And: All the apps I used to authenticate, are gone (eg. IFTTT, Unroll.me, …).

</comment><comment><USER65> I first thought that this was because I hadn't yet accepted the new-ish ToS after they decided to cross-reference history for ads a few months ago... signing back in popped up another 'agree to ToS' as part of the process.

</comment><comment><USER66> Yep, happened on both my Android phone and the Remix Mini attached to the TV. No issues on any of the PC's I use though.

Would it even be possible (assuming say full ownership of the device) to fake the 2FA and still log you in to your account?

</comment><comment><USER67> Could be this related to cleaning/securing up after the cloudbleed accident?

<comment><USER68> It seems it's not related: [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=11...](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project- zero/issues/detail?id=1139#c25)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Happened on one browser, of one device this afternoon. Other browser on the same computer, and other devices, were not impacted...

Like most here I assumed it was just a random, regular occurrence, and didn't pay much attention.

</comment><comment><USER70> Woke up to this message on both my phone and the wife's. Problem was, the correct password did not work in either case, so had to recover using a text message. This suggests something more serious.

</comment><comment><USER71> I don't usually do +1 posts but...

Had this happen to me on my Android. Real pain in the neck since I have 2FA and I use an offline password manager that I had to re-sync to get the password over to mobile.

</comment><comment><USER72> This happened to me. Thought I was either being fired & locked out of my account, or that I had fallen for a phishing scam. I don't know which one would be more embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER73> Happened to me. Signed out of all my devices & browsers!

I thought I was in sleep and had signed out of my mobile. But then same in mac. Then I thought some issue for sure.. And reports are here...!

<comment><USER74> Yeah, same here. I was trying to figure out if _I_ had done something to trigger it or, worse yet, if I'd been "hacked" (or someone got close and Google noticed and killed all my sessions).

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Me too! Said something in my account 'had changed' when nothing had. I've had to re-authenticate everywhere. So now they know.

</comment><comment><USER76> It happened to me in my phone and Chrome browser on my desktop; but my password did work (using 2FA). Both use "app passwords".

</comment><comment><USER77> Happened to me with a Gmail.com account and 2FA enabled. Checked Google's security log and everything seemed normal.

</comment><comment><USER78> Happened to me too, only on a work email attached to a custom domain though and not on any of my Gmail.com ones. Strange.

</comment><comment><USER79> Maybe they are migrating user credentials to SHA-2 and don't want to be too open about it till it's over.

</comment><comment><USER80> I got bounced from iOS gmail app and can't sign back in in that app only. Logging in works everywhere else

</comment><comment><USER81> Happened to me as well i just reached 100% utilization on Google's 19gb thought it was due to that.

</comment><comment><USER82> Same for me as well. I just assumed my account was being under potential compromise, changed password, etc.

</comment><comment><USER83> Same here. Both primary @gmail.com and on-domain accounts were logged out (not at the same time though)

</comment><comment><USER84> Happened to my phone this afternoon. Odd, but thought it was because of my vpn bouncing my IP around.

<comment><USER42> Started happening around noon pacific for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Ahhy my wife mentioned this happened to her this morning, she thought her account had been breached.

</comment><comment><USER86> I guess this has something to do with the new feature of sending money through Gmail?

</comment><comment><USER87> According to Tavis Ormandy this had nothing to do with the Cloudflare data leak, but I'm not so sure about that. It may not be directly related but could be indirectly related to what Google did about the Cloudflare issue. It's just too much of a coincidence.

<comment><USER88> If there's anything that I've learned over the years it's that you can have two seemingly related outages that are in fact completely unconnected to each other.

<comment><USER89> Doesn't seem improbable that a Google employee somewhere might have chosen to invalidate a bunch of tokens based on the cloudflare issue. There are 3rd party sites that accept Google account auth. Also not that big a jump that it wouldn't have been communicated well. Google doesn't always follow up with some kind of "what actually happened" postmortem either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> Happened to me as well, I was signed out of every device I use google on.

</comment><comment><USER91> Happened to my phone too.Suddden alert without any explanation.

</comment><comment><USER92> Is there any kind of report or ongoing investigation blog?

</comment><comment><USER93> This happened to me yesterday on my Android phone.

</comment><comment><USER94> Happened on two accounts today.

ps: why the german text ?

<comment><USER37> I think google tries to get/guess your location and then gives you the language of that region.

<comment><USER95> Yes. If there only were a header that could tell the server which languages the user considers acceptable..

No, geolocation is probably a great idea. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Seems not to happen on 2fa accounts

<comment><USER28> It happened on mine.

<comment><USER97> Happened on mine too. In Chrome I had to re-auth with 2FA, in iOS I just had to pick my gmail account from the account list without even reentering the password. Very strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> This happened to me on Hangouts.

</comment><comment><USER99> Same here. Had to log in again.

</comment><comment><USER100> Glad my Gmail account is no longer my primary email. Haven't seen issues with it on desktop, but my Windows phone is repeatedly spamming a "your Google account information is out-of-date" message.

Nothing in the Google Account panel for recently security changes though.

</comment><comment><USER101> >We're investigating, but not to worry: there is no indication that this is connected to any phishing or account security threats.

This statement is as ridiculous as it gets.

<comment><USER22> Why?

<comment><USER101> They admit they do not have enough information to determine the cause, yet they suggest there is little security risk. They can either not know or not know, but not both at the same time.

At least that is how I understand the statement.

<comment><USER102> "They admit they do not have enough information to determine the cause" No, they didn't.

It did not say "we have no idea, but it's probably not security related". It said "we are still investigating, but it's probably not security related".

Those are very different statements. The first, yeah, reasonable complaint. The second could mean a lot of things. Usually, in these situations, people want to be able to put numbers on things, etc.

So it could reasonably mean "A something like "a bunch of machines are falling over in a datacenter with out of memory, we've determined why, it was an internal bug, fixed it, but are still gathering data about how much was affected, etc, before we say more"

Or whatever. IE saying "we are investigating" doesn't necessarily mean they are investigating the root cause, they could be investigating how long it will take to fix it, ....</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber disabled Volvo SUV's safety system before fatality - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Uber-Disabled-Volvo-SUV-s-Standard-Safety-System-12782878.php <comment><USER2> It seems a little weird to focus on this. The article itself admits it may be standard practice for makers of self-driving tech to disable any built-in automated driving features in the car. This makes sense: presumably there's no good way to talk to the built-in system; having a second system running that can't coordinate with the self-driving system would likely make the combined system _less_ safe. Even if communication between the two were possible, I'd still imagine that just having a single system operating the care would be much more desirable.

<comment><USER3> _"We don't want people to be confused or think it was a failure of the technology that we supply for Volvo, because that's not the case," Zach Peterson, a spokesman for Aptiv Plc, said by phone. The Volvo XC90's standard advanced driver-assistance system "has nothing to do" with the Uber test vehicle's autonomous driving system, he said. Aptiv is speaking up for its technology to avoid being tainted by the fatality involving Uber ..._

No. This is Volvo pressuring Aptiv to make a statement on its behalf, to avoid being tainted by this PR disaster and to shift investigators' focus away from both companies.

Also, in all of the discussions about this incident, let's forget that Elaine Herzberg, a mother of two children, lost her life due to an engineering experiment and publicity stunt ("Come to Arizona! We don't have safety regs!") being conducted on public roads with great risk to members of the public. Volvo, Aptiv, and other participants in these trials should have never signed off ... yet they willingly participated, and an innocent member of the public has paid with her life.

<comment><USER4> I don't see how Volvo is responsible for Uber's recklessness. Volvo didn't make them test on public roads with unsafe technology.

<comment><USER5> The question isn't if Volvo is in any way culpable (they almost certainly aren't) but if there's a risk that Volvo might appear in any way culpable to the general public. The very last thing Volvo wants is the headline "Self- driving Volvo kills pedestrian".

<comment><USER6> Especially because a Volvo plowed into a pedestrian almost a year ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbW2UgmjJUA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbW2UgmjJUA)

IIRC it was discovered this happened because the owner hadn't purchased the "Pedestrian Avoidance Package".

And shortly before that, a Volvo plowed into a parked truck (in a demo):

[https://youtu.be/aNi17YLnZpg](https://youtu.be/aNi17YLnZpg)

This was "was the result of an earlier flat battery that temporarily disabled the system due to low voltage" [0]

The pattern here is not only due to the collision systems themselves, but to the system around the collision avoidance system.

[0] [https://jalopnik.com/5648126/volvo-pedestrian-avoidance- cras...](https://jalopnik.com/5648126/volvo-pedestrian-avoidance-crash-test- fails-spectacularly)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like an obvious thing to do: if you're trying to test the AI, remove complicating, possibly contradictory OEM systems.

But compare with the other discussion currently on the front page, where users point out system subsumption is a basic safety principle. You need a safety system to fall back on if the AI fails (as it will, at least at this stage). It seems grossly negligent if Uber didn't re-implement collision avoidance at a lower level.

Edit: link to discussion I'm thinking of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16681611](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16681611)

<comment><USER8> Why is "car's built-in system took control" harder to handle than "human safety driver took control"? Seems like they are exactly the same: "external system took control".

<comment><USER9> I would imagine it's easier to hook into human operated controls than to car's internal systems. Just put some sensors on steering wheel, pedals, handbrake and couple of others and you will know when someone uses them. If they are used, give up control of the car (or the specific system that was controlled).

Getting information that some automated system initiated some operation is almost certainly harder. System only knows that the car is not behaving as expected, but it doesn't know what caused it. You could probably figure out how to determine if something like collision avoidance was triggered (large shifts in expected vs actual outcomes), but in case of something like ABS you could end up with two systems fighting for the control over brakes in emergency situation.

<comment><USER10> The auto-brake systems in all cars will activate the same brake-is-on switch as the human operator. Often, it's just a switch on the brake pedal assembly. Trivial to tap into it.

If the switch state changes from closed to open, [driver|AEB] have intervened and Uber's system should relinquish control of that sub-system.

<comment><USER11> > If the switch state changes from closed to open, [driver|AEB] have > intervened and Uber's system should relinquish control of that sub-system.

No, both cases are fundamentally different. If a human driver has intervened, the system should expect the human wants to take over all subsystems: braking, steering, accelerating. If the AEB has intervened, the system should expect it will take over only the braking, and only for a limited amount of time; it shouldn't relinquish control (and doesn't have to, since a properly-designed AEB will be an override of the braking control), and should be ready to take over immediately after it releases (and probably bring the car to a safe stop as soon as it has control back).

That is, the self-driving system must know whether the command came from the human driver, or from another system.

<comment><USER10> Steering input sensed, give up steering control. Brake input sensed, give up brake control.

I'm not convinced the two should be linked in any way, human driver or AEB or whatever else. If the human is taking evasive action, the auto-drive is getting input from all the available sensors.

This shouldn't be that hard (relative to the other challenges being faced).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was wondering why it is necessary for self driving tech to be tested in "live" mode, instead of having the software passively log all event data. Then analyze it to see what the software "would have done" compared to a human driver.

Then a lot more testing data could be gathered by outfitting random vehicles (taxis, etc) with the tech, and analyze (and further refine the software) around every event where the software and human driver differed in opinion (i.e., whenever the vehicle abruptly changes speed, did the software detect that it should have hit the brakes at / before the same time).

<comment><USER13> Any feedback from the response of the vehicle to the commands would be absent. So would whatever happens next. If the computer says "steer left a little" but the video keeps going straight, what's the computer supposed to do next?

<comment><USER14> You can't really test the control part of the algorithm, but you could test the detection and object recognition parts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Volvo is also manufacturing a car with a pedestrian airbag, the V40: [https://support.volvocars.com/uk/cars/Pages/owners- manual.as...](https://support.volvocars.com/uk/cars/Pages/owners- manual.aspx?mc=Y555&my=2015&sw=14w46&article=7fceb4e7544b4fbbc0a801e800b0ef6b#)

Both Volvo and Uber could have opted to use this car instead. Even choosing a SUV is question-worthy, as they're known to be more dangerous for pedestrians due to higher bumper heights: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_veh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_vehicles#Risk_to_other_road_users)

IMO there is at least some negligence on their part for not choosing a car that is more likely to protect pedestrians.

<comment><USER16> The pedestrian airbag was introduced before the Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) safety function was available. Volvo no longer offers the pedestrian airbag as they found most pedestrian accidents were avoided by the AEB.

The V40 is also a rather old car and is based on an old platform. The XC90 on the other hand was their newest car at the time the Uber deal was made and is based on their latest platform. So it is not unusual that both Uber and Volvo would prefer the XC90 over the V40. Besides, given the newer technology in the XC90 it is quite possible it is better in pedestrian accidents than the V40 (with the safety systems enabled on both).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There you go. Was seeing the videos of other drivers passing same road. Even the Google XL is better quality than Uber cam. Also, all the lidar gimmick looks like not worked well there.

Like the Intel statement from article. Hope there will be some sort of requirements for this equipment defined. Or technically benchmarked before allowed on road.

> Intel Corp.'s Mobileye, which makes chips and sensors used in collision- > avoidance systems and is a supplier to Aptiv, said Monday that it tested its > own software after the crash by playing a video of the Uber incident on a > television monitor. Mobileye said it was able to detect Herzberg one second > before impact in its internal tests, despite the poor second-hand quality of > the video relative to a direct connection to cameras equipped to the car.

<comment><USER18> Nice try. Tesla already demonstrated Mobileye's inability to handle impending collisions.

<comment><USER19> ??? Mobileye explicitly did not want Tesla using them in the fashion they were, and discontinued supplying them with chips.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=mobileye+sends+tesla+a+lette...](https://www.google.com/search?q=mobileye+sends+tesla+a+letter&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS770US770&oq=mobileye+sends+tesla+a+letter&aqs=chrome..69i57.5718j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

This came about because Mobileye was honest about their capabilities: [https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/tesla-autopilot-mobileye- fata...](https://electrek.co/2016/07/01/tesla-autopilot-mobileye-fatal-crash- comment/)

Tesla, in their immediate response (same article), basically tried to imply they have magic abilities to do much better, which, based on later crashes, we know is not true.

Mobileye, in response, chose to end their partnership with Tesla (and yes, it was Mobileye who did it. The letter they sent ending the contract can be found if you browse around, after Tesla explicitly asked them to continue and signed a multi-year contract earlier in 2016)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's quite opposite to how autonomous systems should be built in the first place: start with isolated modules that do _not_ depend on each other, and stack them on top of each other as the abstraction level goes up.

If you have an automatic but a brutal, on-off style emergency-braking module based on, for example, lidar then it's much easier to develop another, maybe less aggressive but much smarter, auto-braking module based on the regular camera inputs. You can count on the failsafe system to act if higher-level modules fail. With braking in particular, maybe even a couple of redundant low-level emergency brake systems would be a good idea before you even consider any of the more high-level systems. You really don't want to hit jaywalking pedestrians or wandering drunks because both kinds do exist in reality.

Similarly, once the car has a couple of obstacle-detection and auto-braking systems up and running, it's easier to work on autonomous driving because you can be confident that your computer won't be able to drive the car into anything as these isolated and separate systems will take care to stop the car.

Consequently, when you're developing the navigation and routing system it has to be able to rely on the driving functions that deals with the present-time traffic situations, like keeping up with the flow of traffic, slowing down, changing lanes, etc. Again, same thing as with emergency brakes: to develop a smarter higher-level system you need to have lower-level failsafes in place.

In the case of autonomous driving a failure should mean a harsh but unnecessary full stop or the inability to continue, not a collision or the inability to stop. They should definitely have left Volvo's own system on as an additional failsafe mechanism.

</comment><comment><USER21> With friends like this, why would Uber need enemies? We now have public statements from both Velodyne (makes the LiDAR that Uber uses) and Aptiv (makes the hardware used in the Volvos that Uber uses) saying "it wasn't us".

Volvo is the gentleman here, with its "can't speculate on the cause of the incident" statement.

<comment><USER22> The gentleman in public, but we don't know if pressure was put on Aptiv to make a statement so Volvo didn't have to. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The released video is suspiciously dark. That street has street lighting. Can it be edited?

<comment><USER24> It doesn't even need to be edited to be misleading.

Simply taking a crappy dashcam video with low dynamic range suffices; it will make an illusion that anything not directly in the headlights of the vehicle is invisible.

I don't know how people can believe a single word of the early official statements which claimed that the victim "suddenly" appeared in front of the vehicle. The problem of "it's too dark to drive" has been solved a hundred years ago with the invention of headlights.

Here's an experiment anyone can try: turn on the headlights on a dark road, and see if you really see nothing in the lane to your left (driver side). Whatever you do see (which, under normal circumstances would be at least three seconds worth of road ahead) is the way in which the released video is misleading.

<comment><USER25> Also, if it is too dark to drive at that speed you are supposed to slow down not use it as an excuse after the fact.

The speed limit is the max limit, conditions permitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The autonomous vehicle era is in same stage which once passenger planes were in

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe disabling Volvo's built in autonomous braking capability is needed for operating an autonomous driving system. It seems intuitive that multiple autonomous systems could clash.

But it also seems like "It works better than the stock production autonomous braking" would be a gating factor in putting these vehicles on the road.

<comment><USER28> It's not autonomous it's automatic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You do need to disable those systems to have a proper test and may have adverse confusion with the AI

</comment><comment><USER30> Warning: this article contains an auto-playing video of the incident.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why was this being tested at night? It looks like the nighttime visibility was less than 50 feet.

<comment><USER24> I'd say because night time visibility in Arizona on a clear day is way, way more than 50 feet, and the low-quality dashcam footage you see here is highly misleading.

Low visibility on a clear day is simply lack of illumination, and it is a horrible excuse, because:

1\. The car is equipped with headlights, which solve the "limited night time visibility" problem;

2\. The car is equipped with multiple types of high-quality cameras;

3\. The car is equipped with a LIDAR, which is an active sensing system.

Finally, if one accepts that the visibility was limited to 50 feet, as the video misleadingly suggests, THEN one has to concede that the car was going _too fast for how much it could see_.

People are taught to drive so that at least three seconds worth of road ahead can be seen. If you believe that either the car or the driver were seeing the equivalent of what the webcam footage was showing, the car was going unsafely fast.

Hanlon's razor would suggest, though, that the car simply wasn't able to process the data available to it. We'll know for sure if the investigation is successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Worst website I've seen in a long time.</comment>


Unsolicited Advice for Future Subjects of Magazine Profiles - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2257986/pagenum/all/ <comment><USER2> I don't buy that McCrystal didn't know what he was getting into. RS has confirmed that he vetted all the quotes in the article before it appeared, so he at least had to know that he was going to be firing a few aides pretty quick.

Besides, we're talking about a dude who just last summer was carefully leaking stuff to the press to try to force Obama into a position where he'd have to accede to the demands of the brass. [interesting article from a month ago, before all this happened: <http://www.newamerica.net/node/31833>] He _knows_ how to play the game, and he's been playing it for years. He may come off in the article as a battle-weary military dude completely unsavvy with domestic affairs, but I don't think that's a correct impression of him; it's just part of the impression he wanted to cultivate.

The reality, I think, is that McCrystal intended this interview to make it seem as though the Obama administration is well-intentioned, but cluelessly doesn't let the military brass do what they want. McCrystal wanted to carefully cultivate the public perception that Obama just needs to trust the military more, and let them self-govern a bit. What he didn't realize, I think, was that Hastings was smarter than he sometimes seems, and played the interview quite nicely. Where McCrystal had wanted to come off as a no- nonsense military man who's held back by Obama's idealism, he instead came off as an asshole.

And to most of us, it might appear that he's just a poor old-school hard-nosed military guy who went into an interview blind - heck, I think Hastings makes it seem like that intentionally in the article. The truth, however, is that he's as savvy as they come, and he should have been prepared for this.

Anyway, interesting read - Slate always has good stuff like this. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Jay Rosen has a great article on the beat reporter/freelancer aspect of this episode: [http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/06...](http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/06/24/an_openthekimon.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Jon Stewart nailed this one (as usual): _"You know, I may be a four- star general and you may be a reporter for some hippie magazine, but I feel like I can trust you."_

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course, if you consider this an elaborate resignation from the military and into politics, it makes a lot more sense...</comment>


A majority of US teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-are-taking-steps-to-limit-smartphone-and-social-media-use/ <comment><USER2> It's important for people to remember that humans are still intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing, eventually, what's good for them and what isn't. How many of you guys remember the 70s and 80s, when TV and video games were supposed to turn us all into zombies? What happened? We eventually learned how to see these things as the tools that they are. Humans get fascinated by the new and shiny. This fascination may become unhealthy and provide grist for scam artists. Then they wise up. It's the way of the world.

I'd be flat out surprised if _books_ didn't have their detractors back in the day.

<comment><USER3> > I'd be flat out surprised if books didn't have their detractors back in the > day.

They most certainly did have. This reminds me about Socrates' take on books:

"for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality."

Source: [http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.h...](http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/plato.htm)

<comment><USER4> I, for one, find that quite hard to argue with. I guess that makes me tiresome company.

<comment><USER5> critical review is important, you shouldnt feel cowed against a rational argument, _if we all agreed with each other then the first idea that occured would be accompanied by mutual consensus then we would snap to a halt and go nowhere with no variation or innovation_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Headline: _A majority of U.S. teens are taking steps to limit smartphone and social media use_

The study: _52% – said they are_ trying _to limit their phone use in various ways._

Addicts will often lie about trying to get clean. "Trying to do" something is also not the same as "doing" something something.

I'm not saying that teens aren't taking concrete steps to reduce smartphone and social media use, and after all, the first step to getting clean is admitting you have a problem, something their parents can't do. I'm just saying it's irresponsible for TechCrunch to jump to this conclusion, and this headline is amounts to clickbait.

<comment><USER7> What you say is true, but, importantly, recognition of an issue can be the first step in a sometimes long process of managing an issue properly.

So, succinctly, it's a start. Industry should take note and steps to de-"gamify" the whole industry before the gov comes down or people rebel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _A majority, 54% of teens, said they spend too much time on their phone, and nearly that many – 52% – said they are trying to limit their phone use in various ways._

Knowing is one thing and actually getting rid of it is a completely different ball game.

There's a gulf between the planner and the doer. The far-sighted "planner" in us knows that social media/Netflix/cigarettes are bad for us. When you conduct a survey, we are conscious and reasonable people who know what is good from what is bad and hence 54% of use agrees that we spend too much time on useless stuff.

But when it actually comes to doing, the myopic "doer" part of us keeps on snoozing that alarm clock in the morning and goes to Facebook to check the number of likes & comments received every five minutes.

<comment><USER9> The best way to approach this is to start by mechanically removing the possibility of doing the thing you wish to avoid. In the cases you mention:

\- An alarm clock without a snooze button: [https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey- Clock-Outlet-Powered-Operat...](https://www.amazon.com/Travelwey-Clock-Outlet- Powered-Operation-Brightness/dp/B01CEGW56O?ref_=fsclp_pl_dp_3)

\- An app that you can use to block facebook and other sites from your phone: [https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)

There are people who claim that this sort of thing is 'a crutch'. These same people probably would not encourage a dieter to keep a packet of cookies on their desk though. Regardless, crutches are useful whether you've broken your ankle or your mindfulness.

You can and should build more active mindfulness practices on top of this.

<comment><USER10> As someone who's pretty pathetically addicted to the internet at times, having Freedom on my laptop and phone has been a huge plus.

I'm sure I could work around it very easily (I know I can on the laptop) but the shame factor involved is enough to stop me generally and I'm surprised there isn't a huge market for this kind of thing. Been gradually limiting my usage of certain sites down to tiny windows of the day and it's left me with so much more time. Along with that, it's largely removed those sites from my reflex routine of checking for updates... several of them I've just dropped entirely.

Used a few free ones beforehand and the risk of it messing up my hosts file or w/e was always too high to actively recommend to anyone.

<comment><USER11> > Along with that, it's largely removed those sites from my reflex routine of > checking for updates... several of them I've just dropped entirely.

Removing the Facebook app from my phone and logging out when I was done with a session on the computer was a great improvement in my life. Even the barrier of typing the password in was enough for me to avoid mindlessly browsing through stuff whenever I finished a small task.

It's been about 6 years since I took these steps, and I don't regret them. Since the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out, I've been dabbling with dropping FB entirely, but there are some people who I like receiving updates from, but they are only on FB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm 27 and never signed up for Facebook, something about it did not really appeal to me. Mainly because I hate taking / posting pictures and don't really care for posting status updates to friends. I also like to keep my real life social networks disconnected from each other. I like having "work friends" and "friends from school" and don't care for them to intersect.

Out of the social networks I've tried I liked Twitter the most. I did not post often but it was great to peek into the conversations of interesting people.

I think today's generation is open to social networks but maybe the photo posting / status update nature of today's networks just don't appeal. Maybe a more creative social network where more users are creating content than consuming it would appeal.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am not surprised. One thing that I have noticed about myself is I ask myself after a session on Instagram, "What did I get from that?" and the answer is usually nothing. Did it help my career? No. Did it make me smarter? No. Did it help me make friends? No.

It didn't improve my life in any way.

The instant I asked and answered that a few times, I started cutting down my usage dramatically.

<comment> saiya-jin > "What did I get from that?" and the answer is usually nothing. Did it help > my career? No. Did it make me smarter? No. Did it help me make friends? No.

By no means I want to defend current social media fads (never had instagram/snapchat, removed facebook from phone 2 years ago), but that's not how humans work.

You don't go for a beer with a friend to gain something, you go to enjoy it/him/her, have a social interaction and overall great time, and level of friendship usually just stays the same. Nothing learned and no career progress is still a perfectly fine result. Same can be said about going for movies or billions of other activities that don't move you anywhere else in life, they just help you wind down.

The problem is, these social media with all of their unrealistic perspectives of real life don't help us, they frustrate us. Sad thing is, they are somehow mentally addictive and too easy to reach.

<comment><USER9> > Nothing learned and no career progress is still a perfectly fine result.

This is a hard lesson to learn, especially if you were good at school growing up. I find it helpful to, after/while hanging out with friends or walking in the park, make a conscious effort to reflect on and appreciate the feeling of fulfillment that comes from it. There's something healthiness-reenforcing for me about looking around, breathing deeply, and saying 'this is nice'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Believing something is bad for you and actually successfully changing it are two very different things.

<comment><USER15> This reminds me a little of obesity. A lot of people have recognized the problem and are doing something but in the end the average still gets fatter and fatter.

<comment><USER16> That's not correct however. Recognition can and often does lead to correction.

In the US, the percentage of children five years of age and under that were obese, dropped from 14% to 10% over ten years (2004-2014). That's due to first recognizing a terrible problem and then acting against it.

US obesity rates have stabilized. [1] I think we can be fairly certain that's in no small part due to increased knowledge and awareness of the problem over the last decade. The next step is to begin moving the needle the other direction, even if it's a slow process.

People think obesity in the US is a very old problem, when in fact it started just 30 years ago and wasn't a serious issue until the late 1990s. In 1985 no state had an obesity level over 15%. Today, 46 states exceed 25% obesity. I doubt the US will ever go back to 1985 obesity levels, however if it can change negatively that much in less than two decades, then you can plainly see meaningful improvements in a similar amount of time.

[1] [https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and- news/2017/08/ne...](https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and- news/2017/08/new-report-finds-progress-to-prevent-obesity-at-risk.html)

<comment> saiya-jin Very true, this can be often seen in older photos or videos, ie 60s hippies, or any odd-fashion-70s or most 80s. Very slim people everywhere, like whole nation went to gym or for a run every single day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > were built by young men who couldn't conceive of all the ways things could > go wrong

False. They knew exactly what they were doing. I know because Jaron Lanier and Sean Parker were there.

</comment><comment><USER18> I found it notable the "Ready Player One" movie, featured the group decision to close "The Oasis" on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

\-->Because reality is real.

<comment><USER19> That was the most annoying part of the movie for me.

The whole movie(and a book) was about using this amazing virtual world as the only escape from the shitty horrible reality. It wasn't just entertainment - people go to school there, people have friends there, for many it's the only source of happiness.

And that's what it was for the protagonist, he understands this better than anyone.

But the moment he becomes a billionaire and gets a hot girlfriend, he goes "reality is awesome guys, you should go out more!" While nothing has changed for most people. Fuck you, Wade!

It's like the dumbest cheapest way to add a "moral" to the movie, completely out of character, he'd never do something like this.

<comment><USER20> Iain M. Banks had a much more nuanced take on this in A Few Notes on the Culture [[http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm](http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm)] (free to read online), where his general point was that things like the Culture's drug glands should be taken as contraindicators by the government that they're messing up in reality and need to do better.

Ready Player One's problem as a movie/book is really that its not interested in exploring too much detail about how this world came to be, so you get fairly trite morals like that.

Like you could imagine a much longer epilogue where the protagonist uses his wealth to improve society, reduce poverty, advocate for governmental change, provide refuge for domestic abuse victims, and uses individual participation rates in the Oasis as a barometer for his success. Which wold be a real interesting moral for a mainstream movie to include.

<comment><USER18> It would, and that work you linked is new to me.

Thanks. Great, thought provoking read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I just bought a Nokia 3310 3G and plan to curb my smartphone use completely. I'm sick to death of looking at my phone being the only thing I do. I used to do things at night, projects, hobbies, meeting people, and going places. I drive places now via GPS and have no recollection of how I got there. Driving without GPS makes you actually look at your surroundings and enjoy them and start making mental maps again. That all stopped as smartphones took over my life. It almost feels like schizophrenia being connected at all times to all things, all people, and all information. It reminds me of the Black Shakes (Nerve Attenuation Syndrome) disorder from Johnny Mnemonic.

I have received the phone but can't use it yet because my sim hasn't come in the mail. It's tantalizing to not be able to turn off my smartphone just yet. But I can feel the freedom when I hold that dumbphone Nokia.

[https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-3310-3g](https://www.nokia.com/en_int/phones/nokia-3310-3g)

<comment><USER22> I would LOVE to go back to a dumb phone like this, but three use cases really prevent me from doing so at the moment:

1) GPS / Maps for navigation: I agree with your sentiment, but I find that I"m _more_ likely to travel or take adventures when I know I can fall back to Google / Apple Maps as a safeguard for getting me from A-to-B, or finding new places around me.

2) Uber / Lyft / Ride Sharing: I can already use Siri on Apple Watch to say "Hey Siri, get me an Uber," so why can't I text a service like that? Or maybe a dumb phone with Google Assistant installed that could aid with those types of tasks? [Disclaimer: a service or phone like that _might_ exist, but in my limited time searching I haven't found one I like nor trust just yet.]

3) Photography: I'm no pro, but I do enjoy taking very good quality pictures at the fraction of the cost of a bulky thousand dollar camera, alongside the auto-backups and location-data stored alongside.

<comment><USER21> I had similar worries but I want to use a paper map again and I want to use my excellent Pentax ME Super 35mm camera again to take quality photos. The 3310 has a 2 mp camera for emergency photos. It can hold 7 (!) pics in the internal memory unless you add an SD card, haha.

I don't use Uber, so I don't have that issue. I can see where that may be troublesome and I agree a text service would be nice for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Man, when did TC decide to go full-on yellow journalism?

 _Today's internet can be a toxic place, and not one where people should spend large amounts of time._

 _But many of these networks were built by young men who couldn't conceive of all the ways things could go wrong._

 _... and even dopamine drug dealers like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have begun to ..._

 _Thankfully, as this study shows, there's growing awareness of this among younger users, and maybe, some of them will even do something about it in the future – when they're the bosses, the parents, and the engineers, they can craft new work /life policies, make new house rules, and write better code._

Yep, every group of teenagers thinks exactly the same thing. "Our parents fucked things up, but when we're in charge, we'll fix it all". Sadly the real world does not make it easy to effect such change on a large scale. But hey, now that _my_ generation (Gen-X) occupies many key positions of influence, maybe we can finally get it right...

</comment><comment><USER24> Good.

Most social networks are bad for you. They're deliberately designed to be addictive in pointless ways.

I'd prefer teenagers to be tech savvy individuals who have plenty of face to face skills like conversational skills, curiosity, travel, ability to think, work, play, and plenty of other practical skills such as woodworking etc.

Technology as tool but not as a bubble to live in.

</comment><comment><USER25> Similar topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17866030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17866030)

Is today the "Submarine Ad" day for "Kids aren't using social media"? If so, who makes money from us knowing that young people don't use social media? What are they trying to sell to us?

</comment><comment><USER26> Original study:

[http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/how-teens-and- parents-...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/how-teens-and-parents- navigate-screen-time-and-device-distractions/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Create the problem. Then fight it.

</comment><comment><USER28> > 57% say they're trying to limit social media usage and 58% are trying to > limit video games.

I think 98% of US teens are trolling polls...

</comment><comment><USER29> Or are they just bored with it, or the current fad is over, or they realized how stupid what they wrote is?

</comment><comment><USER30> Turn off some notifications.

Limit motion effects / animation.

Enable grayscale filter.

Don't whip out the phone every 10 seconds or around other people.

^- problem (somewhat) solved

</comment><comment><USER31> This underscores why I'm almost inherently biased against most regulations. In a lot (not saying all) of cases, we figure out what's bad for us and make decisions to help solve it. Social, legal, and economic issues in our society often appear to work themselves out when left to their own devices.

Yet, so many have the _opposite_ gut reaction: Teens using too much social media? Regulate the industry! Tax them! Take away their phones!

I'm glad to see things working themselves out with social media usage and hope its successes help increase our ability to avoid expensive and fruitless regulations in the future.

<comment><USER32> I genuinely don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest teenage phone use should be regulated. Generally regulations are suggested when bad actors are blatantly unwilling or unable to regulate themselves.

<comment><USER33> Yeah, I believe that the key point here is that regulations should prevent "harm" to others, not "self-harm". And as far as I know, that's how it goes most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Uhhhh... what?

 _This particular survey featured interviews with 1,058 parents who belong to the panel and have a teen ages 13 to 17, as well as interviews with 743 teens_

Link: [http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen- time-...](http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/08/22/teens-and-screen-time- methodology/)

I get that surveys are really hard, but.... 743 seems like a ridiculously low number.

Looks like the surveys are through the "NORC AmeriSpeak panel".

Pew links to this about AmeriSpeak:

[http://www.norc.org/PDFs/AmeriSpeak%20Technical%20Overview%2...](http://www.norc.org/PDFs/AmeriSpeak%20Technical%20Overview%202015%2011%2025.pdf)

I don't know.... maybe someone who understands surveying & statistics can validate these numbers & their significance better than me?

<comment><USER34> Something like this, any sample size 300 or above (assuming it was drawn in a representative way) is generally regarded as legit.

Source: I run and analyze surveys for a living

<comment><USER35> 300 is kind of a paltry number. One high school's population, for a medium sized town.

Look at one high school, then another. Take each high school from opposite ends of the country. Same results? Not sure about that. But hey, magic number says we're all good. Run the article, right?

<comment><USER36> You've just illustrated in your own comment that it really isn't as much about the number of participants as it is about the random distribution of participants.

Would you think it was any better if it was 3000 people from the same area rather than 300? Probably not a lot.

If you pick 300 or more random people throughout the country, you've going to get a pretty accurate representation of the average person.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Iraqi who saved Norway from oil - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0?mhq5j=e1 <comment><AUTHOR> Related to a current trending HN story about Coal in US Appalachia, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14648018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14648018).</comment>


New tool lets scientists identify 1000s of genome errors in many people at once - <AUTHOR> https://spectrumnews.org/news/toolbox/dna-typo-tracker-uncovers-glitches-in-gene-regulation/ <comment><USER2> Title edit: They're not identifying genome errors. They're observing normal human variation, and identifying a very small number of mutations that are associated with disease risk. Saying they are errors is making an human judgement about the complex fitness function of the phenotype, ignoring many subtle details.</comment>


Ask HN: ASP.Net Core or Rails? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN. I'm struggling to choose between ASP.Net Core and Rails. I want to develop web services for my iOS app. What would be better? Thanks! <comment><USER2> TLDR; it will be great ... in 6 month.

Wait a bit until the RTM, right now it's a mess, but in 6 month frankly, you can consider starting new projects with asp.net core.

I successfully wrote an app with asp.net core, mvc6 , entity framework (ORM) backed by Postgresql from scratch on Linux and deployed it on Heroku (with Mono, I wasn't able to run all my dependencies with CoreCLR). The app was fairly complex, with a big DB schema, it wasn't a toy and I did it in a week (without the tests).

It worked great and was pretty fast, I used the RC1 release though, the RC2 has a completely different tool chain so everything breaks. But aside from breaking API, great experience. C# is great.

Frankly, no question, for me it's a replacement for PHP+Symfony, Rails and Java on the long run. I initially wanted to move to Go but I wont, I prefer to take a small hit in term of performances and use a good language, rather than having optimal performances with a language I fight every second.

</comment><comment><USER3> I used .NET Core for an application. It was the worst experience I've ever had with a framework in seventeen years. We had switch off it about four months in.

Performance was terrible, critical strange bugs were everywhere, and documentation was awful. But most importantly they would completely change important APIs every month. I'd have update almost every file in my project. And they would change the same API again the next month...

Rails, Django, Sinatra, Express, all started with a clear vision of what they wanted to be. This made all the little details support the frameworks big idea. You could use prerelease and beta versions and be fine.

.NET Core, though, hasn't decided yet whether it wants to be baboon or a firetruck.

<comment><USER4> Wait, you're complaining about things that are so because it was a very early preview version?

You should never rely on early versions of something for critical, production projects without recognizing the risk.

<comment><USER5> It was labelled Release Candidate 1. They really did make a mess of this one.

<comment><USER6> And it was a valid Release Candidate, they could have gone live with it. A bigger strategic decision was made to take various concepts from it and apply them to .Net in general not just web specific things. At the same time it gave the ASP team more time to tidy things up and be more consistent in terms of new patterns in a few places.

Microsoft was open very quickly that they were making big changes and that RC1 was going to look very different from 1.0. There has been some chaos but it means we are all going to end up with a 1.0 release that is much better, rather than getting a breaking 2.0 release in short order afterwards.

It should never be assumed that a Release Candidate is going to make it into production, especially from an enterprise software vendor launching a new product. If the lasting legacy of this is more people taking that on board then that will be a good thing.

<comment><USER2> > And it was a valid Release Candidate

I think they messed up calling it a RC1 and leaving it as it is for so long. People started writing drivers and what not and were confident that the stack wouldn't change too much, now they are going to wait the official release (i.e. at least a year) because the trust is broken. They should have called it a beta and not let it live for like a year. You don't do that.

> It should never be assumed that a Release Candidate is going to make it into > production

Of course, but release candidate also means that there wont be any significant change in the tooling or philosophy. RC2 has completely different tooling and the code is completely incompatible. It doesn't build up trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Use Rails 5 Release Candidate. Rails has everything you need to develop a web service / API for a mobile app.

Also, there is a new API-only mode in Rails 5 which could come in handy for your case (API development): [http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/api_app.html](http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/api_app.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Typically with ASP.Net, you will be writing a lot of your logic in a compiled, typed language (even if the types are mostly inferred). That removes one class of run time error from your application.

On the other hand, for the next year at least, non-IIS hosting for ASP is second class. You can host sites on Linux, but there will be gaps. When you upgrade the site, do you need to turn that server on and off again, or it manage the change in excusables automatically?

The opensource library scene for .net is not as good as for some other languages.

Finally, Microsoft has a plan for making money out of ASP.Net Core, and if it seems like a route to run ASP applications somewhere that isn't Azure, we are missing something.

</comment><comment><USER9> Stay away from .NET Core! we've had nothing but issues and they can't even figure out what they want to do, they keep adding/removing/changing and renaming the api all the time.

<comment><USER10> What issues did you have?

<comment><USER11> The docs are outdated: [http://docs.asp.net/en/latest/getting- started/index.html](http://docs.asp.net/en/latest/getting-started/index.html)

<comment><USER12> I would probably use this instead: [https://dotnet.github.io/](https://dotnet.github.io/)

<comment><USER11> [https://dotnet.github.io/docs/](https://dotnet.github.io/docs/) open it and click on: "Web application" and than check where you've been redirected to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Use the tech you feel the most comfortable/productive to accomplish the task now. It if it's .NET, go with the standard .NET, don't provoke new issues with .NET Core. Test and see how your app will be doing. In three/six months re- evaluate your decision and come up with an improvement you shall be doing next. Perfection needs time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Are you or your team building this? If so, which one are you more familiar with? Choose that one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Been a .net MVC developer for 5 years. Lots of problems with Core right now (RC1 is pretty stable but lots has changed since then, so it is a bit of an uphill battle).

I would suggest looking into Django and Django REST Framework. I'm loving using it in my off-time. I'm personally not a fan of Ruby, so I wanted to through my personal suggestion out there.

</comment><comment><USER16> I prefer C# to Ruby but .NET Core is still a Release Candidate and it's a v1 product. So in terms of support, documentation, stability, etc you'll probably be better off with Ruby.

If you're considering deploying to Windows/Azure then .NET Core is a little more temping but otherwise...

</comment><comment><USER17> Too early for .Net Core. Not ready. RoR is what you want. If you have to learn RoR still then maybe that changes the story. Say you know C# and not Ruby- then you could just build your backend on standard .Net and move to .Net Core when it makes sense.

<comment><USER18> That made sense to me and after a web search, found a blog post in MSDN[1] which summarizes the API compatibility situation.

[1]: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/02/10/porting-t...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/02/10/porting- to-net-core/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> AFAIK developing/deploying asp.net on macosx/unix is still a second class experience.

I would go with rails or alternatively Java with jax-rs if you want something somewhat similar to .net.

<comment><USER20> With Visual Studio code and the latest rc2 betas its now becoming comparable (minus Visual Studio)

EDIT: typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The author of JSON.NET has decided to "wait until there is documentation". I found out about this when another library author linked to this issue as his reason for not creating a NuGet package for .NET Core:

[https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json/issues/618](https://github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json/issues/618)

</comment><comment><USER22> If your goal is to build robust, mature web services the Java (Java and the friendly neighbours Scala and Clojure) and .NET (C# and the friendly neighbour F#) ecosystems are very hard to beat.

Hell, if you're choosing the latter get yourself an Azure description, build a new Mobile Services host and off you go -- Everything you would ever want is included out of the box (including client to server datasync), you only need to figure out what storage and other services you want to use (e.g. Microsoft's PN service for easy crossplatform notifications) and bring along your business logic.

</comment><comment><USER23> Unless you are willing to wait for 1.0 release of ASP.NET Core (which will probably happen in the end of summer) go for Rails. It's not done yet and not working properly on Linux.

</comment><comment><USER20> dotnet rc2 is close to release but I wouldn't treat it as an rc. rc1 and rc2 changes are considerable and I'd expect more changes whilst they figure out the rest.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you want to use .Net, .Net 4.6 is very stable.

For production use, wait a while to use .Net Core.. It's awesome, but not there yet.

</comment><comment><USER5> What is the nature of your data? Is it highly structured, do you want to enforce a robust schema, is it financial? What language are you developing the client in? What other services (if any) are you talking to on the backend? From the client?

Why .NET Core instead of just .NET? Is Linux hosting of the backend a requirement?

<comment><USER25> What's .NET on Linux like in production at the moment?

<comment><USER5> It's okay. When .NET core RC 2 ships in the next few days, "good." After Azure and AWS ship compliant SDKs and the rest of the ecosystem wakes up, "great."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ironically this just landed in my inbox: [https://medium.com/@deathdisco/today-i-accept-that-rails- is-...](https://medium.com/@deathdisco/today-i-accept-that-rails-is-yesterday- s-software-b5af35c9af39)

</comment><comment><USER26> 1) Phoenix (basically very railsy w/o some rails' downsides) 2) Rails. Still good choice

</comment><comment><USER27> Elixir and Phoenix</comment>


Netflix original series no longer get time to breathe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21078363/bojack-horseman-finale-season-six-date-netflix-raphael-bob-waksberg <comment><USER2> > Cindy Holland, Netflix's VP of content, said in 2019 that critical acclaim > is important, "but we're really about trying to stretch our investment > dollars as far as we can and make good on our investors' money — it's > theirs, not ours."

This is a huge red flag signal to me. A VP of content should be focused on the quality of shows and the editorial philosophy of a platform. That's not to say that Netflix shouldn't care about money, but that pressure should not be felt so strongly in that specific department IMO.

While some cancellations make sense (Sense8, as much as I love it, the budget was a real reason), others are completely nonsensical (The OA, Tuca and Bertie, Santa Clarita Diet to name a few). It really is a shame that Netflix simply doesn't seem to have a philosophy anymore. They make good content still, but only because they do enough things that not everything can be a miss.

I think we all know we are exiting the golden era of streaming, but I think when we look back, Netflix straying from its original principles may be seen as a notable part of that downfall. The sudden growth of separated streaming services was probably unavoidable, but I can't help but wonder that if Netflix stuck to its philosophy, the quality of the service may have kept other potential competitors around longer.

<comment><USER3> > A VP of content should be focused on the quality of shows

The sole purpose of Netflix is to make money. That's all it's there for. So that the owners (which includes thousands of normal working class employees) can buy food for their families.

Everyone should be focused on that goal, surely?

<comment><USER2> > The sole purpose of Netflix is to make money.

No, that's the capitalist investors view. The problem is that Netflix now sees it as theirs. I'd bet quite a good sum of money that was not the goal when it started. I'd be surprised if that was the goal in 2010-2015 even.

> So that the owners (which includes thousands of normal working class > employees) can buy food for their families.

If that were true, they would not be trying so hard to turn these excess profits. With how Netflix pays I don't think you can really call their employees "normal working class" either. Netflix is a classic case of greed and profit corrupting art. In some ways inevitable, but it's sad to see there's not even an internal tension between finance and content. That should be a battle that is waged daily in order to balance multiple purposes: both making money to support its employees and investors, and the art of shows and movies, among others.

<comment><USER4> From their 2000 S-1 filing: "Our goal is to be the definitive online intermediary for choosing movies and other video entertainment". Why would they want to become that if not for the money?

<comment><USER5> \- To make TV shows better

\- To reduce the number of product/political commercials

\- To spread the best media from every country to everyone

There are legitimate reasons besides money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like the odd man out, with everyone shitting on Netflix and it's original content. I love my Netflix subscription. There's tons for my (young) daughter to watch. There's tons for my wife and I to watch (Sabrina, Daybreak, Magicions, Badlands). There's tons for me to watch without my wife (mostly anime, etc). Sure, some of the shows are cheesy, but some aren't, and I like the mix.

They don't have every movie I want to see, but they're also not my only source for entertainment. As one source of multiple, I think they're great. I can't think of any service that would be good for a single source of entertainment.

I honestly just don't understand the hate.

<comment><USER7> There is also a good amount of foreign shows that I would never have given a chance that are really great.

Black Spot, Dark, Nobel, etc. British shows like Peaky Blinders, Doc Martin, Bodyguard, Sherlock, The Inbetweeners, and especially Broad Church.

Before netflix I would never have given these shows a chance and indeed I cannot think of a time I have watched a foreign show before this besides Luther. Netflix has done a great job of surfacing these at least to me. No idea if I represent the normal TV viewer.

One fascinating thing that I appreciate about foreign tv is that the main actors for many of them don't look like models like in the US but just regular people, flaws and all.

<comment><USER8> I disagree pretty strongly. It has felt like Netflix is deliberately pushing more foreign language content with bad dubbing and often the structure and execution is pretty amateur (eg Ares). They seem to rely on the mere fact it is foreign for it to be bought into as indie or cultural, but the shows are just bad.

It strikes me as s deliberate marketing tactic. Instead of investing in creating nice, acclaimed dramas, they put that money into relatively more garbage shows that cater to mass audiences and try to find shortcuts to repurpose that content and repackage it to "kill two birds with one stone" and cater to the indie niche with it.

But the tactic doesn't work, and now my Netflix menus are filled with super frustrating noise of these foreign shows, often which you can't tell are foreign until you press play. It has made the platform nearly unusable to me.

The crazy thing is that I love a lot of foreign movies and shows. Amour, You Are the Apple of my Eye, Burning are some of my favorite films. But the things Netflix is pushing on me are more like network-level crap dramas with a clear attempt to make you feel like they are fancy merely by being foreign.

<comment><USER9> I think that's just a side effect of them becoming a more global company and producing content for different markets but just throwing it all up worldwide.

Would agree their dubbing is universally horrendous. Even for something well reviewed like Dark.

<comment><USER8> One reason why I'd still disagree is that Netflix heavily engineers personalization into their recommendations and listings. You're not accidentally seeing those foreign titles, you are being targeted with them... which means you're not being targeted with similar English language shows that would be as good a match in their system (because they would rather save that production money and try to get you to watch the already-made foreign show), or even less good shows in your language of choice.

For me it's very nearly at a level of canceling the service. Their original content hasn't been compelling for me personally in many years, and now it feels deliberately manipulative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sometimes I wonder why Netflix doesn't produce more content with small creators. What I'm imagining...

1\. Produce some fitness content. Yoga, stretching, meditation, calisthenics, etc. I get the impression there are countless talented fitness trainers that would love to produce regular content while being cheap to hire. Look at Peloton, they charge $40/mo to live stream classes after people spend thousands on a bike. I imagine a lot of people would watch live or prerecorded fitness classes on Netflix, become loyal to the trainers and stay subscribed for their content.

2\. Hire some YouTubers. I spend more time on YouTube than Netflix. Lots of great comedy, educational, travel, and tech content there. Most of them are also struggling for money and would jump on an exclusive Netflix partnership for a fraction of what Netflix pays for other content.

3\. Daily news. Find a few entertaining personalities and journalists that can report on the daily news. Why can't I switch on Netflix today to get the latest on coronavirus?

Lastly... let me search the content. Why can't I just browse comedy movies released in the last few years, or horror movies sorted by release date? I find Netflix such a terrible and frustrating interface and I have to scroll past the same movie or series a dozen times as I go through the content. I've had Netflix for years, and I still feel like I have no idea what is actually on there because it's so annoying to browse. I think I'll likely cancel next year.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure why any popular YouTuber would go to Netflix. I doubt it could ever make financial sense. The distribution must be so much lower on Netflix. I would be worried if any of my favorite YouTubers went to Netflix because I would be afraid that's where their content would go to die. Netflix discovery is absolutely terrible.

<comment><USER12> Netflix's discovery may be terrible but YouTube's discovery is non-existent. It's common knowledge that in order to get views on your YouTube videos, you submit them to Reddit or another platform, because the algorithm will not push your content if you have less than a thousand or so subscribers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Among other reasons I canceled my subscription last night, Netflix's current data-driven culture is driving:

• Good shows to shut down,

• Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad concepts ("The Goop Lab") to be approved—actually, this was the named reason for why I canceled; I actually wrote "The Goop Lab" in the Other cancellation box. [https://globalnews.ca/news/6488433/goop-uk-health-warning- gw...](https://globalnews.ca/news/6488433/goop-uk-health-warning-gwyneth- paltrow/)

• Blockbusters to lapse,

• Fillers to be licensed.

It's just not worth the 15.99/mo I've been paying them anymore, which is unfortunate. Five years ago, originals had serious promise.

<comment><USER14> I was about to close my account and realized there was a lower tier, $8/mon.

<comment><USER13> You're not wrong, but in standard def for one device, it doesn't work with my use case (laptop/tablet).

Works on phones/smaller screens for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would have shut down my Netflix subscription two months ago, but since I'm sharing it with my 70+ mom who's still enjoying it for some reason, I'm keeping it going for now.

Otherwise, for me (~40 yo male in Sweden), Netflix isn't very interesting at all. I think its data-driven culture is awesome at creating shows that are fascinating to its California-based execs.

Also: I wish they'd tone down the politics. I'm with Bill Burr on this: Not every single fxxing thing has to be about politics. We get it. We're onboard. We don't need to be preached at in every singly fxxking show though. Remember, we're paying for a service here. We expect being entertained. Not getting preached at.

<comment><USER13> You have the power.

<comment><USER15> This isn't a complaint.

<comment><USER16> The voting system on HN is a joke. To some degree it does work for an audience of intellectuals, but it wouldn't work _at all_ with a general audience. Everyone just downvotes what offends their sensibilities, but because messages get greyed out, moved down the page, and eventually hidden with relatively few downvotes, they're effectively saying "nobody should hear your opinion", no matter how civil your language.

Just take the downvotes as a badge of pride. I expect this very comment to get downvoted and those same voters won't even bother to tell me why I'm wrong.

<comment><USER11> Complaining about how people vote is explicitly against the Hacker News guidelines. That's likely why people downvote comments that are only complaining about downvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had Netflix for a brief moment and all their original series felt really dull, I couldn't find one that would hook me for longer than several episodes, I was almost forcing myself to watch them - I much prefer old stuff, maybe not so stunning visually, but with much more substance, that's why I switched to HBO GO.

<comment><USER18> Funny. I can't stand most of the stuff on HBO. I had it for a few months to watch GoT, but I couldn't find anything else I wanted to watch. Although recently Watchmen was really good.

I love a ton of stuff from Netflix: Ozark, Unbelievable, Witcher, Lost In Space, Altered Carbon, and a lot more stuff I can't think of at the moment.

<comment><USER19> If you have a Prime subscription, you might appreciate HBO's Rome. But I do agree that their catalogue can be pretty hit or miss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is isn't just about Netflix, though I'm sure there were some people who saw Netflix as a bastion for good TV. At this point, entertainment is all about quantity of mediocrity and CGI spectacle. They have the formula to keep most people watching while putting in the least amount of effort in terms of storytelling. If you can psychoanalyze your audience, you can keep them hooked and feed them whatever messages you want. All Netflix needed was to set up people's expectations and then gradually reduce their excellence so the audience continues to watch despite the mediocre quality.

If more people besides those on HN cancel their Netflix subscriptions, that will be a good thing because maybe they'll stop "binge watching" with pride and start doing other things with their time. I'm pessimistic on both fronts because I don't think the average person is going to cancel their Netflix, and even if they did I think they'll continue to vegetate while watching Amazon Prime, Disney+, Hulu, CBS All Access, etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's super weird that there isn't a single result when I Ctrl+F this page for the word "union". Bojack's animators unionized, and four months later their show was canceled.

A story in two headlines:

[https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/bojack-horsemans- animators-h...](https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/bojack-horsemans-animators- have-voted-to-unionize.html)

[https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/raphael-bob-waksberg- bojack-...](https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/raphael-bob-waksberg-bojack- horseman-ending-interview.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I had hoped Netflix would usher in another golden age of film: throwing small budgets at innovative content creators (like Binging with Babish), up-and- coming auteurs (think like early 80s David Lynch). That didn't happen. The data driven approach regresses content to the mean and I worry stifles creativity.

Netflix doesn't seem to get that I'm not going to invest my time in a show that likely won't get a second season, and if it doe almost certainly never a third. I find it mildly heartbreaking when I get invested in characters just enough and then I never get to see their archs finished. I'm still so sad they canceled The OA.

<comment><USER22> I'm the opposit. What can be so detailed that it needs more than a 90 mins film?

Some super complicated thing where every detail count and that lasted several decades in real life? Ok, make it one season, and let say 5 or 6 episodes max.

What in the world could be so intersting that it needs to be several season? By the time you're done you could have done a PhD and know absolutely everything about a particular subject!

<comment><USER23> The problem is not shows designed for, say, six episodes only being six episodes long, that's perfectly fine, just like 90 minutes is perfectly fine.

The "limited series" format is a very good match for flatrate streaming and there are lots of very good examples, mostly from the UK.

The problem is shows designed for >30 episodes being cut short. Do that too often and you'll see massive reluctance to start watching any new show that isn't a limited series. When was the last time you considered using the Google chat system du jour?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For those griping about quality... Emmy wins and nominations would refute your personal bias. Content doesn't appeal to everyone but critics have been very impressed with some of the content on Netflix.

[https://deadline.com/2019/09/2019-emmys-wins-network- shows-s...](https://deadline.com/2019/09/2019-emmys-wins-network-shows- scorecards-1202742071/)

<comment><USER25> Award shows are merely popularity contests after a certain threshold of quality is met.

Source: the Emmy and NAACP award sitting on my shelf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I moved back to DVD.com, 9.99 for one disc at a time and you can get Blurays (with 7.1 sound, something no one seems to stream) of the stuff Netflix can't stream because it went to Disney+, Hulu, etc. They also still have a reasonably priced 3 disc program if you trend more toward TV binge watching than movies.

Plus add in MakeMKV and Plex and there is a nice little ecosystem. Not as convenient as the golden age of Netflix, but now that everyone wants their own streaming service, I'd rather just cycle through a couple discs a week than do the whole lets get Disney+ for the Mandalorian, okay bingd watched that now lets get Netflix for Witcher, oh now Season 2 of the Mandalorian is out, back to Disney, oh look HBO has a new thing, etc.

<comment><USER13> Before anyone says anything:

DVD.com is owned by Netflix. And honestly, if you're hooked on the availability of content and don't want to ditch the Netflix pipeline completely, switching to DVD.com probably makes sense. The revenue shift from Netflix to DVD.com will have the same net impact on spending decisions.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, they even have a bundle deal to have DVDs and some level of streaming. It is interesting because at one point Netflix was trying to sell of the disc shipping business because physical media was dead and the whole service felt neglected.

Now that mailing you a disc is the only way they can get you certain content, the service is back closer to the level it was when they were killing Blockbuster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm actually surprised that anyone thought that Netflix would ever end up as anything but a "TV Network", albeit with a nice interface. The business model is what it is.

All the hype, the stratospheric share price, the prognostications of "disruption" (which they certainly did) don't change the fact that it's all about the content. And in that sense, Netflix doesn't really have any advantages. Creators will go where the pay is best, which leaves less for the distributor; winner's curse and all that.

<comment><USER28> Netflix is bigger than any TV Network, the only thing missing is live shows but not all TV networks carry live shows. If Netflix decided to push content instead of allowing it to be pulled, they have enough content to have 50+ channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Netflix is definitely pursuing the quantity over quality strategy, which doesn't appeal to me.

That said, there are some really strong offerings hidden in the noise. The shift to originals over licensed is hurting the average quality level... but it definitely makes sense as a long term play.

It still makes sense for me and I am happy support the many gambles they take with content... even if most are lackluster.

<comment><USER22> I feel the world is splitting in two:

One half watching YouTube at 1.5 speed and skipping the first Wadsworth constant minutes of it, reading Wikipedia and looking for more ways to get directly at the essence of things.

The other half who wants to pay a fixed monthly price for somebody (Netflix today) to keep them "entertained" for hours while filling up their non-working hours.

<comment><USER12> It's always been like that, since when television was mostly free and you watched the same four channels every day unless you preferred the library because you could browse encyclopediae and find one or two specialized books about a topic you were interested in. The 'Net just made us more aware of the latter category.

<comment><USER22> The big difference is that Netflix partly replace cinemas for some people but they are adding less and less movies and more and more series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> AMC on the other hand seems to take the opposite approach, at times stretching a series out for seasons after it has run out of energy and material. Wonder if the difference in the approaches is due to differences in the subscription versus advertising revenue models.

</comment><comment><USER30> This was probably the best show that I've ever watched.

</comment><comment><USER31> We barely watch it but even if we see one movie a month it's much cheaper than the theater. Factor in concessions and it's a steal.</comment>