Interesting take by Dave Winer (in audio, here's the download link) about the sort of post-Twitter technical mess we might be in, specifically around ActivityPub and the complications of federation. I do worry about new standards being so difficult compared to the old social web.
Another blog post from Paul Frazee on the thinking behind Bluesky's technical plumbing:
We ended up calling the AT Protocol a "federated" network because we couldn't think of a more appropriate term, but it's not really a kind of federation that anyone is familiar with. The peer-to-peer influence is too significant to neatly slot into that archetype. It also confuses with ActivityPub's model of federation which is now popularly understood.
I'm following AT Protocol closely (and using it in Micro.blog!) and I still haven't fully wrapped my head around all of this. More to learn.
As long as she has support and money, Nikki Haley should stay in the race. I don't think she's in it for VP. It's more to be the alternative if everything implodes. Such a difficult path, though, because too many delegates will be awarded before Trump's trial starts in DC, if it even starts on time.
Posts reply count UI
Micro.blog can be thought of as a mashup of a Twitter-like social timeline and a WordPress-like blog posts admin interface. Some parts of the interface are designed for interacting with the community, some parts are designed for managing your blog, and some parts are kind of in limbo between both sides of the platform.
One example of this is on the Posts screen, where there hasn't been a link from one of your blog posts to any of its replies. Today I added that:
I have mixed feelings about this interface. We try to avoid "counts of things" across the platform. There are no follower counts and no like counts. We want to discourage the popularity contest mentality that can come from comparing statistics across users.
In this case, these are just links to replies on your own view of your posts. If a post has no replies, there is no indicator. I decided to roll this out so we can live with it for a little while and see if we like it. I consider if somewhat experimental and based on feedback, we may change it to be less prominent, or deemphasize the count. It could also fade away if there are no new replies recently.
Still thinking about this, but wanted to share it now. We update the platform on a near-daily basis, usually small fixes and tweaks. Check out news.micro.blog for a log of recent changes.
This is a really nice feature from Feedbin: Fixable Feeds. I noticed this in the UI just by accident a few days ago and updated a few feeds that were out of date.
From the blog post for Day One shared journals, they do a great job of explaining why the feature exists and what to use it for. No obvious way to share a journal entry to anyone on the web though, right? I thought after being acquired by Automattic they might do more there.
Daniel Jalkut has shipped Black Ink for iOS! I'm sure we'll be talking about this on the next Core Intuition. This release has been years in the making, most of which I imagine was just Daniel trying to figure out when to call it done. With software, there's always more to do.
There are a lot of new blogging systems popping up. This is a good thing. Micro.blog will be competitive with almost anything, but also there's the bigger picture… If the open web is getting better, we're better too. A rising tide lifts all boats.
David Smith blogs about Stephen Hackett joining his indie company:
I am extraordinarily proud of being an “indie”, it is a meaningful part of my professional identity. As such I held on too long to a sense of needing to do it all myself. But I’ve grown in this regard and I am extremely excited about what Stephen and I will be able to accomplish together.
As Jonathan Rentzsch said at the C4 conference in 2007, indie really means "non-large". Small team, usually bootstrapped. You know it when you see it.
Listening to Rabbit founder Jesse Lyu on This Week in Startups and learning a lot. They aren’t selling the R1 at a loss. Also more details about how the LAM works.
The reaction to Barbie is overshadowing what a success the 8 nominations are. And of the women nominated for best actress, who would you remove from the list to nominate Margot Robbie instead? These lists are so tough. For best director, though, there's a strong case... I blogged as much last year.
The Wall Street Journal has an article today about Apple's plans for sideloading in the EU:
Apple’s approach to the EU law will help ensure the company maintains close oversight of apps downloaded outside the App Store, a process known as sideloading. The company will give itself the ability to review each app downloaded outside of its App Store. Apple also plans to collect fees from developers that offer downloads outside of the App Store, said people familiar with the company’s plans.
No good. Reviewing apps distributed outside the store defeats the purpose of sideloading.
Happy 40th anniversary to the Mac! My first introduction to the Mac was as a kid, visiting my uncle who had a Mac SE... I would just pore through the manual and knew there was something special about the UI. Got the Mac Classic a handful of years later and have been building apps ever since.
The more I hear from Jesse Lyu, the more impressed I am. I finally pre-ordered a Rabbit R1. Kicking myself a little for being so indecisive on day one. Hope they can get manufacturing rolling smoothly.
Most political campaign emails are too long, with manufactured urgency, and formatted poorly. But I just got a Joe Biden email that only says: "Together, we will defeat Trump. Again." That's the whole email. We're all busy and I can get behind mass emails that are succinct. 🇺🇸
Just got derailed reading the EU's Digital Markets Act again. I'm sure the Apple lawyers see some wiggle room in there, but to follow the spirit of the law it should at least look something like Android sideloading. Tired of the games for what is inevitable in the long run.
Free parking, at Lazarus on Airport. ☕️
I've always been against the death penalty, but this experiment with nitrogen in Alabama is particularly twisted. Also, this is just wrong:
Mr. Smith’s case is unique in part because the jury that convicted him of murder also voted 11 to 1 to sentence him to life in prison, rather than death, but the judge overruled their decision.
Casey Liss blogs about the multiple-monitor potential of Vision Pro:
Yesterday was an odd day, in which I spent time working at two different local libraries. While I was there, I realized that I am a week and change too early. If I had my Apple Vision Pro with me, I could have the workspace of my dreams, all with only my MacBook Pro and Apple Vision Pro.
To each his own. A key to my productivity anywhere is that I only use my MacBook Pro, no monitors — at home, at a coffee shop, on a train. (Casey's right, we need more trains here.) There are many places where a Vision Pro is not suitable.
Still sorting out Apple's changes for the EU, coming in March. On first reading, it's totally different (and better) than the external linking rules from just last week. Feel like I'm on a roller coaster.
I was starting to get excited about the new marketplace functionality coming to the App Store, until I got to the part about needing to show Apple a €1 million line of credit. Out of reach for most of us.
Core Intuition episode 584 is up now with our reaction to the just-announced App Store changes for the EU. Recorded shortly after all the news dropped today, so there's a lot to unpack and follow up on.
I've been re-reading parts of the DMA and Apple's new rules, and honestly I can't tell if they are in compliance. It does seem like a good-faith effort, even if the sideloading capabilities fall short of what I want. There's a lot we won't know until the first developers try to be marketplaces.
No surprise, Apple's new DMA terms get worse the closer you look. It's not true sideloading, but even accepting third-party marketplace apps for what they are, Apple shouldn't track downloads (and charge a fee) for apps that are installed outside the App Store. I hope the EU pushes back.
Coalition for App Fairness on today's App Store news:
Apple clearly has no intention to comply with the DMA. Apple is introducing new fees on direct downloads and payments they do nothing to process, which violates the law.
Apple's new "Core Technology Fee" is really problematic. I ignored it at first because I'm not expecting millions of installs. Needed a spreadsheet just to wrap my head around the theoretical ramifications.
Follow-ups from @coreint yesterday about the DMA... We glossed over the Core Tech Fee. I have a better understanding of how the fees add up now, and where they apply. App Store + external payments: 10% (for small devs). Only way to avoid paying Apple: a marketplace and less than 1 million installs.
Fixing the App Store, part 2
In a blog post from 2020, I suggested four changes to fix the App Store for developers: 1) allow sideloading; 2) don't require in-app purchase; 3) keep curating the App Store; and 4) lower the cut to 15%. I described each of these in more detail in that post, so I won't repeat the reasoning here.
With this week's App Store changes for the EU's Digital Markets Act, let's revisit how Apple is doing with those four points:
- Allow sideloading? Not really. Instead, there is a new type of marketplace app that can install other apps. There are hurdles to jump through to become a marketplace app. For Micro.blog, I was imagining that I could have a marketplace app just for our suite of iOS apps, thus bypassing app review going forward, but this doesn't seem like it is going to work in practice. Furthermore, there is a new Core Technology Fee that would still apply.
- Don't require in-app purchase? Sort of. If you opt-in to the new rules, you can use your own payment system, or link to external payments on the web. The problem is Apple still wants 10% (for small developers), so there is little to no savings, and it creates new bookkeeping problems. The only way to avoid the fee is to have an app on a third-party marketplace. Even then, you're still subjected to the Core Technology Fee.
- Keep curating the App Store? Yes. Isn't very relevant here, though, and Apple is no closer to adopting my vision for how to run the App Store.
- Lower the cut to 15%? Yes. It can be as low as 13% now. But again, there's the Core Technology Fee to offset any savings if you have more than a million installs.
This is all pretty disappointing. I have been bitter about the App Store for years, but yesterday I tried to keep an open mind. I was initially excited about the potential for marketplaces. I blogged that it seemed like a good-faith effort to comply with the DMA. Apple had put a bunch of work into this, in documentation and new APIs. The more I understood it, though, the less compelling it became. In some cases it will be worse than what we had before.
My opinion from way back in 2011 hasn't changed. The problem is Apple's total control over app distribution, and so the only permanent fix for the App Store is removing that control with true sideloading:
Apple, want to charge 30%? Go for it. Want to make the submission rules more strict? Fine. Want to adjust how you run the App Store to reflect what’s happening in the market? No problem. Just give developers an out. We are going to be back here year after year with the latest controversy until exclusive app distribution is fixed.
I wrote that thirteen years ago and it has proven correct every single year since. The DMA attempted to address this, but Apple's response comes up short. Instead of fixing the root problem, Apple has added an even more complex set of bandaids to preserve their control over the store.
(As an aside, see that quote from Steve Jobs about free apps in my blog post? The Core Technology Fee is a major departure from Steve's framing. Apple now wants to charge free apps for the first time based on installs alone.)
So, is Apple actually in compliance with the DMA? Rick VanMeter, from the Coalition for App Fairness, says no. There's also a thorough post by Damien Geradin on The Platform Law Blog that reaches the same conclusion:
As to whether the reduced commissions comply with FRAND. The answer is an unequivocal no. These commissions are not fair and reasonable for the reasons described in the preceding paragraph. But they are also discriminatory. The reason is that app developers whose apps sell digital goods and services and those whose apps don’t, effectively use the same app store services, but are treated differently.
I don't know where we go from here. It always feels like two steps forward, then back. The EU must stand firm. I'm tired of ending up in the same place, over and over.
My code is rarely clever, but sometimes it makes me smile. There's a feature in Micro.blog that takes the folder of Hugo-generated files and selectively removes files that shouldn't be published. For example, to redirect "/", it removes the index.html file. I call these models "vetos".
$83 million awarded to E. Jean Carroll. I guess the jury was trying to deter Trump from continuing to defame her or anyone, but probably no amount will stop him. He just can't help being a total jerk.
Crazy that it's more or less equal odds on Trump either dying broke or being elected president from jail. When does our current alternate timeline merge back to the main branch? This chaos can't go on forever. 🇺🇸
John Gruber's post about Apple's EU plans is long, but the part in the middle with the details of the fees is one of the most concise summaries of how Apple wants this to work. The question we have to answer next is whether the Core Technology Fee is compliant with the DMA. I'm not sure.
Ben Werdmuller blogs about how the IndieWeb is for everyone, inspired by a post from Tantek Çelik. Tantek:
The IndieWeb is for everyone, everyone who wants independence from organizations, independence of agency to associate, and who embraces the web of humans that want to interconnect, to communicate, to value and respect each other, whether one degree apart or thirty.
Both great posts.
For folks who have been actively using Threads, are we at the point where we need URL shorteners again? We've largely not had to think about this with most social networks after Twitter started with t.co URLs, but it seems that Threads does care about the URL length.
Spurs with back-to-back wins. Ignore the season record so far… Fun game and great 4th quarter. 🏀
With all the App Store EU changes, briefly considered that maybe my iPhone 14 Pro will be my last iPhone. It is a great phone, but I'm not currently inspired to drop $1k in Apple's lap every couple years. Think I'll keep it a while.
MacStories has also published their write-up on the App Store changes for the Digital Markets Act. The more I think through the system Apple is attempting, the more it becomes clear the Core Technology Fee is not compliant with the DMA. Marketplaces simply cannot work with the CTF in place.
Reviewing news coverage of the Core Technology Fee, usually glossed over is that the CTF applies to every install of a marketplace. From Apple:
Developers of alternative app marketplaces will pay the Core Technology Fee for every first annual install of their app marketplace, including installs that occur before one million.
Because marketplaces will usually be free, this makes it nearly impossible for them to work without charging developers just as much as Apple does, or having enough cash that it can lose money. Everything in Apple's rules is designed to prevent anyone from using this.
