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The liability issue is addressed somewhat through the DMCA safe harbor law. But it’s probably not a lawsuit you want.

You can certainly make the argument that phones (and computers) are slowing down. It used to be a revolution every year or two, now it’s very incremental.

I would not say though that you can effectively use a 10 year old phone. There are some old networks out there, but major networks shut down 3g.

You might have seen Joanna Stern’s attempt to use an iPhone 3G on YouTube last year (if not watch it for some amusement). Even if the battery on that device were fine, the device was really pretty unusable.

Also: even if the battery were easily replaceable, replacements will only be easy to find for the most popular older phones.

And has a shit ton of casing.

Oddly enough for me, my laptop battery has aged much faster than my phone one. And they’re almost exactly the same age.

I remember the sealed battery covers. They sucked. They maybe worked for light splashes but modern phones are fully submergable. And I remember the wireless charging things behind the battery cover. Those sucked too. Plus you have all the plastic bulk to encase the batteries.

That’s fine and all. And you should be able to replace the battery.

I just don’t want the compromises that I suspect are required to get to one that’s easily swapped out like in the 2010s. I don’t want to lose MagSafe, water resistance, or capacity. For me, those are more important than easily replacing the battery.

I suspect this plays into why small flagships are mostly a thing of the past.

The maximum a phone will ever last is probably ~10 years, because that’s about how often 2g, 3g, lasted. By then it certainly isn’t getting any software updates and on the Android side, security updates won’t even last 5.

So the maximum lifespan of a phone is, reasonably, 5 years. That’s taking into account software updates, and other wear and tear.

During that time, if you use and abuse the battery, you might go through 2 batteries, which you can have serviced.

So I’d say it’s more akin to a timing chain that’s a pain in the ass to replace. Most car owners would not try to replace a timing belt, much less a timing chain.

As long as they’re reasonably replaceable, I don’t see it as a big issue for longevity. I’d rather have a bigger battery (less plastic casing), wireless charging w/ magsafe, better water resistance, etc.

If the battery is toast 3 years in, I can just replace it, which I’ve done on other devices (including my last Pixel). It’s not much more inconvenient than taking a car in for an oil change. Besides, on my 18 month old phone, capacity is at 95%. These days batteries often last as long as you’ll need them.

I see the much bigger longevity issue on the software side. Many phones (especially budget ones) only get 1 major OS upgrade and very infrequent security upgrades.

I don’t really see the benefit anymore. My current device lasts ~40 hours on a charge, so I seldom find the need to swap anything out. Even if I did, those little USB battery packs that charge multiple devices are more practical. On a long flight, my wife and I just share one and it works on the Switch and tablet too.

Sealed devices have way better water resistance, less plastic makes the batteries themselves bigger, and wireless charging (especially with magnets) will be challenging to add to a battery that’s also the back cover.

I’m sure I’ll be in the minority on this, but, I don’t really have any interest in a removable battery, especially if it involves other compromises on size, capacity, and features.

That hasn’t worked in a while, has it?

Presumably they’d enforce it by requiring social media companies do age verification.

“By clicking here…”

BIOS passwords have only ever been to deter unsophisticated attacks. Though this is more unsophisticated than the rest.

If you break them up, make sure you’re breaking them up into viable businesses.

For example, instead of requiring Google to sell of its whole ad tech business, require it to spin off competitors. Then put a cap on the percentage of marketshare any ad tech business can have.

I’m not necessarily arguing that, I’m just arguing that breaking up Google may cause other problems, especially if it results in lots of small businesses with little revenue but a wealth of consumer data.

That’s one complaint. And breaking them up would be fine (probably). But regulators are also eyeing breaking Google and its other businesses up. Android has long caught the eye of regulators in Europe.

(Less so in America where it has a minority of the market…)

I think you underestimate how many small, long tail businesses are non-compliant with GDPR. For that matter, there are probably quite a few in Europe.

Big companies can’t afford the liability of GDPR non-compliance. Small ones, like those created by breaking up Google, will treat compliance as a “nice to have.”

Better laws are indeed needed.

My simple point however is that a big Google is probably more (not less) likely to be compliant with GDPR. Breaking up one big badly behaving company may have the unintended consequence of creating a multitude of small, even worse behaving companies.

Don’t be so sure, for example, that if the (likely) two dozen or so employees working full time on Google Photos were their own business, with a need to show a profit, that they wouldn’t just sell that data immediately. There would be no nexus outside of Mountian View for foreign regulators to even intervene with then; it would be a small business.

Google is big enough to have a nexus in Europe. I wouldn’t assume that for its long tail of products.

Either way, Americans, Canadians, etc could be concerned with their privacy issues.

That means that it’s from a journal in Denver. Boulder is 15 miles from Denver.

And the same authority that would have broke up Google has to approve the acquisition. They most likely wouldn’t.

Why not? It wouldn’t create a monopoly.

That’s not something that they can do under EU law.

And EU law applies only with regard to Europeans. And European companies.