Linked List: November 23, 2022

Wednesday, 23 November 2022

The Talk Show: ‘Deliberately Churned’ ★

For your holiday listening enjoyment: Christina Warren returns to the show to talk about the drama at Disney, tumult at Twitter, and how the hell to score Taylor Swift tickets.

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‘Overleveraging Attention’ ★

Jim Ray, on his Flicker Fusion blog:

John Gruber asks:

I’m curious what else you think has surprised Musk about Twitter thus far. Not what you think Musk is wrong about, per se, but what he is already surprised about.

I think Musk is genuniely surprised he hasn’t been able (so far) to bluster his way through this.

I mean this sincerely. In an economy driven by attention, Musk uses bluster like a CDO, it’s how he became the world’s richest man and how he managed to just about single-handedly turn a public company private and rule by fiat.

I think it’s surprising because Musk’s bluster not only generates the attention he needs but acts as an ace up his sleeve, a way to guarantee a win. Musk leveraged, and then weaponized, the absolute worst tendencies of the social-era internet — fandom, brigading, the financialization of everything, the final merge of politics and identity. And Twitter was his weapon of choice.

I think Ray is exactly right here. I also think Musk believes his bluster will soon win out. (And as Ray alludes to near the end, if you want a one-word answer to the question “How the fuck did Donald Trump get elected?” it’d be hard to do much better than “Bluster.”)

Meanwhile, in ‘Free Speech’ Twitter Utopia ★

Dan Moren, on our mutual friend Lex Friedman having his Twitter account suspended:

My pal @lexfri quit Twitter a few days ago. His account has now been suspended — I can only imagine that’s a result of his parting tweet, which contained some choice words about Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

So I guess we see exactly how much Elon cares about free speech.

Friedman’s tweet that prompted the suspension, in its entirety:

My final tweet is: Fuck @elonmusk and fuck @realDonaldTrump.

That’s it. That’s the tweet. No additional drama or backstory. And as I type this, Friedman’s account remains suspended.

Meanwhile, Musk is running another yes/no Twitter poll:

Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?

You couldn’t make up this clown show if you tried.

Update: Friedman posits a credible theory how this happened.

Twitter vs. The App Stores ★

Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, in an op-ed for The New York Times:

There is one more source of power on the web — one that most people don’t think much about but may be the most significant check on unrestrained speech on the mainstream internet: the app stores operated by Google and Apple. [...]

In my time at Twitter, representatives of the app stores regularly raised concerns about content available on our platform. On one occasion, a member of an app review team contacted Twitter, saying with consternation that he had searched for “#boobs” in the Twitter app and was presented with … exactly what you’d expect. Another time, on the eve of a major feature release, a reviewer sent screenshots of several days-old tweets containing an English-language racial slur, asking Twitter representatives whether they should be permitted to appear on the service.

Reviewers hint that app approval could be delayed or perhaps even withheld entirely if issues are not resolved to their satisfaction — although the standards for resolution are often implied. Even as they appear to be driven largely by manual checks and anecdotes, these review procedures have the power to derail company plans and trigger all-hands-on-deck crises for weeks or months at a time.

Twitter wannabe Parler was banned from the App Store for three months in 2021 for its free-for-all lack of moderation. And it appears as though Apple executives aren’t exactly fans of Musk-era Twitter.

That said, I think content moderation isn’t where Musk is going to steer Twitter into direct conflict with Apple and Google over their app stores. The in-app purchasing revenue splits are. Here’s Musk last week, responding to a Slashdot post about Epic alleging a $360 million payola scheme from Google to keep Activision from creating its own Android game store:

App store fees are obviously too high due to the iOS/Android duopoly.

It is a hidden 30% tax on the Internet.

It’s not a big business at the moment, but Twitter’s year-old Super Follow subscription feature uses in-app payments, and “selling subscriptions” is apparently a big part of Musk’s plans. I’d be surprised if Musk isn’t soon as outspoken (and perhaps as litigious) about Apple and Google’s app store payment rules as Tim Sweeney and Epic Games.

Politico: FTC Is Likely to Challenge Microsoft’s $69 Billion Activision Acquisition ★

Josh Sisco, reporting for Politico:

The Federal Trade Commission is likely to file an antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of video game giant Activision Blizzard, maker of the hit games Call of Duty and Candy Crush, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

A lawsuit would be the FTC’s biggest move yet under Chair Lina Khan to rein in the power of the world’s largest technology companies. It would also be a major black mark for Microsoft, which has positioned itself as a white knight of sorts on antitrust issues in the tech sector after going through its own grueling regulatory antitrust battles around the world more than two decades ago.

Central to the FTC’s concerns is whether acquiring Activision would give Microsoft an unfair boost in the video game market. Microsoft’s Xbox is number three to the industry-leading Sony Interactive Entertainment and its PlayStation console. Sony, however, has emerged as the deal’s primary opponent, telling the FTC and regulators in other countries that if Microsoft made hit games like Call of Duty exclusive to its platforms Sony would be significantly disadvantaged.

Resident Evil Village, Metal 3, and the Future of Mac Gaming ★

Tony Polanco, writing last month for Tom’s Guide:

Now, Resident Evil Village has made me a believer. Gaming on Macs can be just as good as on the best gaming PCs or best gaming laptops, provided developers actually optimize their titles for Apple’s computers. [...]

Without MetalFX enabled, I saw frame rates hover in the low 100s while I walked around the main protagonist’s home (Ethan Winters) during the intro. Later, when the game shifted to a dark, snow-covered mountain, frame rates fluctuated more dramatically — dipping into the low 70s at worst. Still, those are very impressive numbers with MetalFX off.

Saying I was shocked when I enabled MetalFX is an understatement. In Ethan’s home, frame rates instantly jumped into the low 200s. They dropped to the 150s when I began walking around, but those are still very high frame rates. Frames dipped into the upper 80s when traversing the mountain, but I’m not complaining.

And the kicker:

I should note that performance didn’t take a hit when I unplugged the Magsafe cable from the MacBook Pro. Typically, frame rates drop substantially on gaming laptops when you unplug, but that wasn’t the case here. And though I didn’t play for extended periods of time, I never once heard the MacBook Pro’s fans kick in, nor did the laptop ever get warm. Considering how some gaming notebooks start to sound like jet engines seconds after booting up a game, this is a huge win.

The most startling thing about playing Resident Evil Village on a MacBook Pro wasn’t actually performance. It was HDR. The MacBook Pro (16-inch) has one of Apple’s “XDR” displays, a mini-LED panel that’s better than any other gaming laptop display. That’s because mini-LEDs that can get this bright are still fairly uncommon in the world of gaming laptops. And in many ways, there’s no better game to play in HDR than Resident Evil Village.

U.K. Regulator to Investigate Apple and Google’s Mobile Web Browser Dominance ★

Press release from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority:

Responses to the consultation, which have been published today, reveal substantial support for a fuller investigation into the way that Apple and Google dominate the mobile browser market and how Apple restricts cloud gaming through its App Store. Many of those came from browser vendors, web developers, and cloud gaming service providers who say that the status quo is harming their businesses, holding back innovation, and adding unnecessary costs.

Web developers have complained that Apple’s restrictions, combined with suggested underinvestment in its browser technology, lead to added costs and frustration as they have to deal with bugs and glitches when building web pages, and have no choice but to create bespoke mobile apps when a website might be sufficient.

Mike Wuerthele, writing about the investigation for AppleInsider:

Another factors cited in the investigation are “suggested underinvestment in its browser technology” leading to added costs for developers forcing developers to create mobile apps to work around problems. On the surface, this seems contradictory to the mobile gaming aspect of the investigation.

It’s not contradictory at all. The unifying thread between mobile game publishers (especially cloud gaming) and web developers is that they want to route around the iOS and Android app stores (especially Apple’s). What they’d like Apple to do is either (a) make WebKit on iOS so robust that it could be used to make games and apps that are every bit as capable as native games and apps, or (b) allow third-party rendering engines (Chrome’s, of course, being the only one they actually care about), including, of course, the ability to save web apps to the home screen using those third-party rendering engines.

If you like using Electron apps on the Mac, you’d love the future of iOS these complainants are clamoring for government regulators to mandate.