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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Of course the Lemmy devs aren’t liable for GDPR violations; the admins are. That doesn’t eliminate the problem, though: if the Lemmy devs wish to see their software used as it is now in the long term, they need to introduce GDPR compliance tools. We should consider it gravely concerning that bad actors (e.g., a Reddit employee) can set up Lemmy admins for a massive GDPR suit at any moment.

    Edit:

    if the people complaining are so concerned, why do they not contribute the code to fix their perceived issues?

    I know it’s a stereotype around here, but not everybody on Lemmy is a programmer with free time.













  • The push towards apps is due to a collection of corporate interests that are of dubious value to the end user.

    Apple, Google, and Microsoft prefer apps over websites because they can exert much more control over their functionality and operation (as well as collect that sweet sweet 30% royalty on all digital purchases). This is why they intentionally make Home Screen bookmarks so unintuitive and inconvenient compared to downloading an app (at least on iOS and Windows; not sure about Android). They’re also more difficult to make cross-platform, although this is becoming less and less of an issue as cross-platform libraries evolve).

    App developers push for apps because they’re much stickier (especially due to the aforementioned bookmark situation; it’s all very intentional). Their app is right at the user’s fingertips until they explicitly decide to delete it. For streaming services and the like, app SDKs also tend to offer more robust DRM than their browser counterparts. That’s why, e.g., Hulu cripples their streaming bandwidth on browsers like Edge while their Windows app is not, even though their Windows app is very obviously just an Edge WebView 2 window. It’s pathetic, but it’s something they can point to in a meeting with their investors and say, “See? We’re doing something about piracy!” as if one trip to a piracy website doesn’t refute all their hard work.