Finished reading: The A to Z of the New Testament by James F. McGrath 📚
The 2023-24 CCHA Mason Cup champions. Michigan Tech is going to the NCAA tournament!
Apple will say that consumers benefit from their exclusive control over the iPhone ecosystem. I imagine that Google will say that consumers benefit from tying their ad business to search by providing consumers with more relevant ads. The problem is that in capitalism consumer benefit is not the ends, wealth generation is the ends. As a general principal, though not applied enough, the ends do not justify the means, particularly if in the United States the means result in harm to consumers.
Markets and Ecosystems
Based on what I’ve read so far, it seems to me the biggest challenge the DOJ has in its lawsuit against Apple is convincing a court that there is such a thing as a premium smartphone market. In my opinion what the DOJ really means by a “premium smartphone market” is an iPhone market, in fact I think DOJ would have been smart to actually call it the iPhone market.
What defines a market? From a traditional lense, one may say there is no such thing as an iPhone market. However, the iPhone is not just a product, it also includes the App Store and accessories like the Apple Watch that are exclusive to the iPhone. Apple and most of the tech industry refers to this as the Apple or iPhone ecosystem and that ecosystem functions in ways that most will recognize as a market. Apple clearly uses monopoly power in its control of the iPhone ecosystem.
If one accepts the iPhone ecosystem is a market then I think Apple most clearly has a monopoly. While I am not even close to being a lawyer, I would think the next step is to convince a court that the iPhone ecosystem/market is large enough to cause harm to a significant number of U.S. citizens to justify government action. Unlike in Europe, antitrust in the U.S. is about harm to consumers and not harm to competitors.
So, if I am right, I think the big question being raised by the DOJ is a question about whether a product ecosystem is a market. The product ecosystem is fundamental to Apple’s business model, and frankly many people benefit from that ecosystem. In some ways the issue of product ecosystems and antitrust has occurred before. At the time when phones were only landlines one could only buy a phone from AT&T and a DOJ lawsuit forced AT&T to allow consumers to buy phones from other manufacturers. I am sure at the time AT&T considered the phones as part of their product ecosystem and AT&T did claim security and quality reasons for why they should be the exclusive providers of phones.
Despite what Apple says, they will fight this suit because the App Store and exclusive accessories like the Apple Watch are competitive advantages. Both are big revenue streams and Apple takes actions to protect those revenue streams. Apple has stated this approach is a fundamental part of their business model.
Consequently another big question being raised here is, if a company makes a product that is a platform for selling other products, is the owner of that platform allowed to be the exclusive store front for those products and require a portion of each sale of that product? HP makes more money selling ink for their printers than in selling printers; Gillette makes money selling razor blades and practically gives away their shavers. Should a manufacturer of a computer platform be allowed to have an exclusive app store that is the only way for one to install apps on that platform? The EU has said no, now the United States is attempting to say the same thing.
Two days after the spring equinox, mother nature does have a sense of humor. Just got back from a short walk and I think there is about four inches on the ground.
I agree with everything that Om Malik wrote in this post about how AI IS Changing Writing, in particular the following:
My approach to AI has been to embrace and extend my capabilities. I use quite a few tools with AI inside. Many of them have boosted my productivity. I am on the lookout for more to add to my arsenal, so I can become more effective when it comes to my creative output. I don’t need it to write for me. I need AI to make sure I don’t make spelling mistakes, point out some overused phrases, repetitive usage of phrases, and what my editors used to call “Om” things.
I don’t understand why an individual will want AI to write for them because I own (and want to own) my words because they reflect me. My writing is never about producing content and I don’t make a dime from any of my web sites. I may be biased, but I think what makes it blogging is whether or not one is making money.
I agree with everything that Om Malik wrote in this post about how AI IS Changing Writing, in particular the following
The upcoming U.S. Presidential election is unique in my life time in that it is an election between two incumbent Presidents. Consequently, we don’t really need to focus on character issues because there is a record of what each candidate did in office. For example, Biden ought to focus on what Trump did and did not do about COVID-19 as his actions are on record as are the consequences, millions of people died while Trump was in office, unnecessarily. I also wish Biden, or pundits, would at least emphasize that there is a difference between feeling better and actually being better. Were you really better off when Trump was in office than you are now, or did you just feel better (were more entertained) while Trump was in office? Finally, yes, inflation is an issue right now, and if we accept that government spending is the primary cause, let’s note that it was Trump who signed and provided most of the COVID stimulus checks. Most economic circumstances are reactions to the past.
I might be out of touch, but the idea of one being able to buy a Macbook at Walmart seems odd. It feels like a cheapening of the brand. I get the ability to buy Apple “consumer” goods that include iPhone and iPad but I would not think of going to Walmart to buy a Mac.
To Be Disturbed By Ideas Is O.K.
From “The Problem with Defining Antisemitism” by the New Yorker
Stern tells this story in “The Conflict Over the Conflict,” a work that is unlikely to please partisans. The book makes the case for bridging differences and recognizing nuance. It also describes Israeli-Palestinian history as an “ideal subject” to teach at universities, precisely because it is so divisive. At the West End Temple, Stern reiterated this belief. “On college campuses, students have an absolute right to expect they’re not going to be harassed, they’re not going to be bullied,” he said. “But to be disturbed by ideas is O.K.: we want students to be disturbed by ideas and to figure out how to think about them.”
I have to remind myself that the high 30/low 40 degree temperatures that we are currently experiencing is closer to normal than the 70 degrees we had last week. The over night lows are cold enough to cause a light dusting of snow. Unfortunately the daffys that have been appearing are not taking the temperatures well.
Watching me like a hawk on St. Patrick’s day.
Site Changes
It started with a post that Manton Reece wrote about long form content publishing in a microblog format and before I knew it I had completely overhauled the appearance of this site. I wrote a reply to that post about my one wish for micro.blog is that it would not publish the full content of a titled post on the main page of the blog. In my opinion posts with titles are essays that are best published in full on their own page. I said that I would rather have a link to essays along with a lede.
Manton replied suggesting that I try the Tiny theme and that sent me down an unexpected rabbit hole of testing the theme and different fonts before deciding to apply that theme to this site. If you are a regular reader of this site you should have notice I made several changes, starting with the title of the site.
Before I go in to how I came to the new title for this site I want to acknowledge Matt Langford who developed the Tiny Theme for micro.blog. I’ve not crossed paths with Matt, but I appreciate his work in developing the theme and the associated summary plugin. Right now I am using the basic functionality of the theme but there are features that I plan to check out more in the future.
The post you are reading right now provides an example of what started me off trying Tiny Theme. If you came to this post via the main page of this blog you saw the title of the post followed by the first paragraph followed by a Read More button. I think not publishing the full, multi paragraph post enables the main page to maintain a “news feed” like appearance. I expect it to also make loading the site faster because the pages are smaller. To read the full titled post you can click either the title of the post or the Read More button.
Having changed the appearance of this site I felt it made sense to change the tagline and the title of the site. Rather than the tagline referring to me, I wanted it to refer to the theme of my writing and found that a sentence from the Thomas Merton quote on my home page did the job nicely. I then used Microsoft Co-Pilot to brainstorm titles that related to the tagline and settled on Routine Revelations.
So welcome to my new, old blog where I write posts and share information about my extraordinary ordinary routine revelations!
I don’t think the blogroll on the right side of Scripting News is visually appealing. To my eyes the page is now cluttered and that affects readability, and for me the reason to go to a blog is to read what the author has written and published. I like that both of my blogs just display my writing with no other distractions. If memory serves me right, blogrolls came before RSS, and for me RSS feed readers replaced the need for blogrolls. If you want to see what blogs I am reading or advocating look at the content of my RSS subscriptions.
I know that one can have a physical book printed from a journal in DayOne. What I would like is to be able to import all of the titled posts I’ve written here, which I call essays, into DayOne so that I could have a book produced from them. I would love suggestions about how to make that happen because it seems that I should be able to import the RSS feed of my essays into DayOne.
Daffys are about to make their appearance. Spring is springing.
Everything old is new again, even on the Internet. Blogrolls are making a come back. One can think of them like the news feeds/timelines one sees on social networks, but in this case just web site or person’s name. Not sure I want to host such a think on my own blog, and I think my RSS feeds page provides the same function in a more useful manner.
Today I am starting my next virtual walk of the Camino de Santiago. I think I should be able to complete the 577 miles later this year.
It took 582 days for me to walk the equivalent of the 2024 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Goal achieved!
I’ve written down some of my thoughts about the pending iPad announcements. I am curious about what Apple will announcement but not anticipating being a buyer.