Screentime

Screentime is an issue among school going kids. The problem stems from many aspects of our modern society. I guess the solution to keeping kids off mobile screens is to engage with them - play games with them, etc. Alternatively, they should be playing in the playground more than spending time on mobile or computer screens. But some families might struggle to do this. I suppose it is the kids in these families that spend a lot of time on screens.

There are negative effects of letting kids use mobile phones. But in this post, we won't be discussing them. The root of the problem is addiction. However, it is, (statistically speaking) not as serious as substance abuse. What I mean to say is parents don't run to doctors or hospitals for screen-addiction; parents might do it more likely for drug or substance abuse. However, addiction is just a part of the problem. As mentioned before - the relative society and family circumstances also contribute towards the problem. Perhaps there is no one to spend quality time with the children to keep them away from phones. Not everyone can afford nannies, and care takers. And incidentally these are the two reasons people quickly conclude on.

"They" (statistically speaking) don't blame the corporation(s) behind technology. "They" don't blame the developers responsible for the apps. And this is where I want to drive focus. There are many facets to this problem.

The engagement game

Take for example the app developers. They have made an enticing game. Your child cannot stay away from it. If you dialed back a little bit back perhaps 20 or 30 years before, there probably used to be a "muffin man" or an "ice cream man", who would have boisterously walked near to a playground of children. The little kids nagged at their parents for whatever they sold. And if this were a repeating pattern; for example the seller targeted the playground every evening, a lone parent, or a group of parents might confront the seller. In the modern day, do you think this is possible? At most you might find an email to the developer. Even if a parent or a group of parents mail the developer, what are the chances the developer(s) decide in the favor of the parents? (We have ushered into an era of faceless conversations). If the parent is determined enough, they would sue the company that developed the game. But would normal people go to that extent?

The operating systems of this era

These days phones run an operation system (or an OS). Operating systems have been around ever since (and a little long before) computers were commercialized. It is hard for people in my generation to imagine computers before all this commercialization, except for a small number of geeks or savants or old-timers. Today I would drool at a person who has a computer that runs Windows 3.1. This was a graphical OS created by Microsoft. At around the same time Macintosh (by Apple) also provided a graphical OS. This was the era when computers were just starting to become a house-hold item. Before this it was probably OS's like DOS, etc. And computers mostly remained in the defense or academic circles. Not inside households.

Computers grew smaller and smaller due to smaller chips. In fact, this is what enabled computers to become "personal". However, the form-factor alone would not have made it happen. The OS also must evolve to be graphical. And from “personal” things have become “handheld smartphones”. However, when things became graphical, we do see a plethora of games also developing around the same time. If you search the internet for retro games, you can see what I mean.

The engagement game - part 2

Humans became hooked to screens. The trend of addictive games latched onto smartphones eventually. The games themselves evolved. There is much to discuss here. Today there are game economies to learn about. But that won’t be discussed here in length.

It's hard for a layman to imagine what goes inside the mind of an OS developer or a desktop evangelist, or, even a game or app developer, or even a project manager. But one thing for certain it is never about purely reducing or restricting engagement. Imagine the backlash MS Word or Excel might receive if in the middle of the income tax deadline it shuts down and asks you to open the app after a few hours. Though what people might often report is that today it might ask you to subscribe to some plan. This is a pattern of limiting software use. The motive is however, to get a customer to pay for it. And once a customer purchases the software product, is it designed to be responsible to you? Does it take care of your health in some way? Does it say, maybe you have been typing away on this screen enough - look away? Does it remind you to rush to the grocery shop else you won’t have dinner tonight? Or even just blink?

All of this is in a disheveled sense, a ploy to increase your engagement. The more the engagement, the more the chances are you pay for the next product or billing cycle. Dis-engagement was never the principle to begin with. 

The same philosophy applies for OTT entertainment. It is not in those companies best interest to limit your viewing-time - to dis-engage you from binging.

Licensing woes

Many softwares do ask people for licenses (or subscription plans), and the concerned software might deny many features or refuse to function without this. Even their EULAs go to the extent of holding you for a punishable offence if you somehow find a loophole which obviates licenses. My emphasis is on “limiting software usage”. So in a sense, this has already been done before. That was more motivated by capitalism. Most of these kinds of software are in the space called productivity applications. Mobile games roughly fall in the entertainment category. Licensing software patterns aren’t the norm here. There is absolutely no trace of an un-intended regulation towards engagement. For productivity apps, it was the licensing that would discourage some people from using them. The equivalent for games does not exist.

One could argue that this is a reason why mobile gaming is addictive among children. However, the problem doesn’t stop there. If anything, many systems around the whole gaming industry are to drive engagement - not limit it.

Ads and screentime

This is a symptom of an economy replete with members who are pro-enticement. Because the current mathematics is that the more screentime, the more the profit from ad revenue alone. Most of the OS developers and companies behind popular OS’s of today invest a great deal in gamifying developers through ads and analytics programmes. Unfortunately the design of this system or programme is such that the more screentime the more the ad revenue, and hence more profit.

A stone to my head

Some developer out there is annoyed that I wrote this. I am basically saying to stop making the game enticing! Some may read it a bit extremely to mean, stop earning and starve to death. I am only writing this from the perspective of somehow ensuring that our societies are healthier. Thus is the reason to write on topics like this. And also to get views and readership. But setting that aside, asking a game developer or a gaming company to stop enhancing the games is something like a knee-jerk reaction. However, I do not see any other alternative. There may be camps averse to the camp of anti-engagement, aka, the pro-engagement camps. People here might actually argue the relative positives of mobile gaming - it keeps children away from drug use, or other similar evils. It makes children think creatively, etc. Some extremist developer or ceo in the pro-engagement camp might want to throw a stone at me. However, my purpose was only awareness on this topic. To bring to light that the system is primarily pro-engagement driven. People - the developers, gaming companies, parents, and their children inadvertently fall into it.

The anti-engagement drive

The anti-engagement drive shouldn’t be something that pro-engagement campers hate. It is just a force of life shaping us to be healthy to yourself and everyone else around you. Is it anti-capitalism? Not quite. What if this “drive” or “movement” was a kind of symbol? Have you ever seen the EA Sports logo? What if that was reversed? That could be a probable candidate of symbolize anti-engagement! It is meant to educate people that unchecked-gaming is addictive. Developers must design games around this principle of anti-engagement. It should not mean limiting the software use for profitability reasons; it should mean that the limiting is a means to increasing welfare in family and society. Parents should understand what excessive gaming and screentime can do to their kids. Kids themselves must have an avenue to understand it. Parents should invest time to determine other ways to engage their children and not lose hope. 

Perhaps people can build a whole community. Will you join? What can you do? Are you okay with this?

Keep Android Open Saga (6/6)

It Us!

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series easy enough to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 6.

Let's summarize.

1. Google is locking-down on android. They publicly claim that it is a move to protect consumers.

2. Scams happen. It is the side-effect of technological progress in civilization. There will always be victims here. Sorry if you happened to be one, and, if so, know that you will shake-it-off!

3. We already live in a world where linux exists. It was born out of the concept of "software freedoms". The right to side-load is a necessary aspect of software freedom. Denying these nature of freedoms only delays innovations. But apparently the corporate lore is that denying this freedom actually protects you from scammers.

4. Have a look at and/or study the evolution of other products to see the bigger picture of why a "walled-garden" would make sense. 

However, is "the company" in concern really to blame? 

One must pause, to consider a world where Youtube is this "free online service" for streaming/uploading videos on the internet. They have had both positive and negative impacts. The impacts flourish in several categories of humanity - news, education, culture, cuisine, etc. On the negative end, there has been dissemination of racism, hate, misinformation campaigns, conspiracies, etc. But if it were a paid platform from the beginning, I probably wouldn't be writing this post. 

Youtube is the easiest company/product to scapegoat for the purposes of writing these series, but, I don't really intend to scapegoat the company/product. I really want to scapegoat a model of capitalism many companies/products (an therefore human beings) adopt. There are many services/businesses/products, online or otherwise, that follow the same pattern/model. 

If you have lived in an urban city, there are (for e.g.) new cake shops opening every few months or years. As a strategy of increasing customers, and "expanding the business", what do you think a store owner does? He/She might offer cakes at some competitive price for a short duration. This is done with the long-term goal of increasing customers, expanding, and profits. In theory, that phenomenon is healthy sign of civilization and economic progress. But I believe that is co-incidentally why we are where we are today. 

This "free first and start charging later model", seems to work for successful companies. It may not work for everyone else. I wonder how many generations moving forward are people going to actually understand that this "model" isn't a model that always churns profit. But this pattern is sadly going to stay for a long time. And there are going to be consequences small or big.

If you were to ask me, "what is the better road forward", I would say, whatever your answer is...it shouldn't begin right away with any of those economic "-isms". One must step back, be patient, and observe what the already known "-isms" have done to society; observe what have they done to "the kingdom of humanity". 

Thankyou for reading.

Keep Android Open Saga (5/6)

The social science of Datacenters

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series easy enough to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 5.

I wish datacenters were thought to us in school. Probably in social science classes. You are able to read this blog post since, this post, is stored on some database on some server (owned by google) on another remote part of this planet. This is the magic of the internet. A layman could easily be humbled here. Not by reading my blog post specifically. And if you are a digital scam victim, that emotion is non-existent now. (But it will come back to you). The significance of these artifacts on earth doesn't get an iota of thought among the average people.

To understand their significance, one must simply look at the plethora of apps on their phone. You will find apps for all niches of urban life (both good/bad). Listing down a few in no particular order:

1. Food delivery apps

2. Weather

3. Mobile banking

4. Matrimony

5. Dating

6. Sex

7. Trekking

9. Renting

10. Education

11. Chatting

12. etc

When an app becomes an internet sensation imagine what would happen to its datacenters. How many such apps do you know? Given that this blog post alludes to a certain company we all can take a good guess what that sensational product might be. Again, let me disclaimer here, that even though I am alluding to very real entity, I would want my readers to generalize, and, not always think of that entity as the entity, but a bunch of human beings influencing other humans for profit. (Be it for others or the self).

Now let's understand the rise of youtube. It started out as a free video streaming platform. It remained that way for many years. It gained popularity, and, its datacenters also grew as consequence. The youtube webservice has its core services exposed over the internet for any developer to access. This had lead to appearance of many alternate mobile viewing clients which streamed youtube. The web-service enablement enabled google to make its mobile app counterpart. Other developers began making alternate clients where people could stream youtube videos. For e.g. NewPipe is one such popular client.

After many years of operating this way, the system resorted to streaming advertisements on its platform. This in itself became publicly annoying. Meanwhile the company rolled out their creator outreach program. The "ads" were central to the effectiveness of this program. Because youtube paid off creators if their venture became successful - i.e many people came to stream videos. Youtube would portion some of the ad revenue to these creators. The creators were getting paid.

But slowly the ads became more frequent and annoying. These clients grew even more popular; not just for the "ad-free" streaming. Some clients allowed for downloading video content. Very soon, youtube allowed for a subscription model for consumers to enjoy ad-free services. And thus, slowly ensued a battle of small-time developers and youtube. A few of these clients allowed for a no-ads experience while not being subscribed. Youtube would change something on its website or service to prevent such clients from working properly, and the developers would always find a way to circumvent those strategies. It was a kind of war.

I suppose the company got fed up with this war. We learn from the previous posts that the "true" purpose of this android lock-down is to protect the consumers from being scammed. What the consumers don't know is that this lock-down allows google to operate the "walled-garden" more effectively. The "lock-down" requires a developer to register; the company can take a decision on allowing a developer onboard the platform. Now if the developer is known to float apps which go directly against a product's terms of service, he/she will not be onboarded. Most apps which fit the category mentioned above will easily be unavailable. It is a corporate win for Google, and the (gullible/vulnerable) consumers.

The important take away here is that to keep a service such as youtube (i.e an online service) "always running", you have to incur massive datacenter operation costs. So where does it make sense to offer service for free? At any point of time? Did the gesture of making it free in the first few years contribute to many good things of today?! 

Thankyou for reading.

Keep Android Open Saga (4/6)

Hello Linux

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series easy enough to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 4.

Side-loading is not good per people at google. Perhaps they are people who want to be dramatic about it for your security; it makes their jobs easier. They do have the right to save you from being scammed. You - the consumer. Side-loading is a glorified term for obtaining software (and installing in on your phone) on your own without the intervention of the appstore. The software program could come from the internet, or, your friend, school, etc.

But have you heard of Linux? You may equate this term to an operating system. However, what you really need to look into the story about how it came about.

Linux is an operating system software - like android, or windows. Linux stands for is software freedom. And most lay people of today might easily mistake it as a privilege that their phone's appstores give it to them. The right to install any software they want. The actual essence of software freedom is lost when you talk about appstores like the playstore or apple store.

A vital part of this freedom is all about upholding all the following principles when we talk of distributing software:

1. the right to install any software you want and run it on the hardware you own (provided it can).

2. the right to install software from any source.

3. the right to obtain the source code, modify and distribute copies of the modified version

4. the right to run the software the way you want

Android embodies all of this. But the software on their appstores need not really have to. However, the point of focus in point #2. It is the vehicle via which a plethora of digital scams happen today. People can download software from untrusted sources. This way they can perhaps impersonate your banking app and capture your bank's credentials, and, finally siphon your savings. However, one has to realize it is "evil" lurking in the world - doing its bidding - instilling fear in the product managers and consumers.

If linux or even windows was evolved around the concept of a walled garden in the early days, that could have been another parallel universe. A hard/pessismistic fact to admit here is that scams are the natural price or consequence of software freedom. But scamming has always happened throughout human existence sans the advent of computers or "software freedoms". The same phenomenon (i.e digital scams) happens irrespective of people understanding the significance of "software freedoms". We must all come to terms to the flaw in humans as a species. If a victim happens to be reading this, it might be hard to swallow. It doesn't mean the victim is forever weak; everyone eventually comes out of this weakness. 

Let me summarize some key points:

1. Unsuspecting victims fall prey to digital scams. Some of them lose their life savings. Some are driven to suicide and depression.

2. Scams in whatever form cannot be ethically prevented. It means they will keep recurring no matter the technological civilization we live in. Many people accept this hard fact. Still many other people are oblivious to it.

3. But in the face of this, "software freedoms" have evolved, and, gave us the gift of linux. (Android is a derivative of linux). (Although I say this, I mean here that point #2 of the freedoms is essential for such a kind of progress), and, the android os and its appstore violate this principle. It wasn't so at the beginning; when android was in its infancy. Recents events surrounding this topic of side-loading suggests the violation of freedom #2.

4. Now certain people are complaining that side-loading (which is a conflated term for freedom #2). They claim we should get rid of it to protect the consumers.

I can see why people come to that conclusion, but, I wish they upheld freedom #2. At face value these decisions to me (who isn't a victim of digital scams yet) seems incongruent.

I am sure the world is drowning with paranoia because of the digital scams. Let us assume those few people at google win and decide to lock-down android. What then?

The evolution of linux operating system has the answer to this question. So for those unfamiliar with that, I would just say that the speed of innovation might just be slowed down a bit. Now is the world and therefore life/civilization really a balance of "speed of innovation" and "the plethora of scams"? I will leave you to ponder on that.

Thankyou for reading.

Keep Android Open Saga (3/6)

Evil

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series easy enough to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 3.

Certain corporate developers and tech leaders say that side-loading is a kind of evil. Side-loading is a fancy term to mean obtaining software on android phones through channels other than the formal appstore. There is probably a corporate blog post online which elegantly explains why its evil. And to paint that picture more gullible, they explain a plight of a certain victim of a "developing country". That story could be true or false; I haven't fact checked.

Shocking fact! Nobody really knows why Blue Whale? To learn more about the blue whale app, I suggest you search wikipedia. Today we don't know the evil perpetrators behind it. Perhaps a criminal psychologist can answer this question. Maybe some day someone will...

However, what you must think about is...why at all they (i.e such incidents) happen?

And, why is it "they"? (A plural). I am not alluding to the blue-whale app instance alone; there are other nefarious apps which have existed over time. Every year a new one keeps coming up. It has a different attacking mechanism. For e.g. if you are computer savvy, and you know a little linux, try searching youtube for the xz-hack. 

We are entering into a dark territory of our human existence on Earth. There are a lot of darker chapters when you venture here. Fortunately I am only going to deal with a small (and thus relatively less dark, yet evil) topic about digital scams. 

Lets forget the digital aspect of a much wider phenomenon called "scams". Why do scams happen? Is it the capitalist economy that breeds scams? Or, is it a private desire to feel powerful? Is it revenge? Whatever the reasons or agenda may be, when you observe the facts behind any scam story, the victims show some level of failure or weakness. The scammers engineer the victims to their point of failure. It could be their carelessness. It could be that the victim had a dark past when he/she was younger; that wasn't made public before; and the scammer used this fact to blackmail.

Digital scams are no different. In digital scams, the "technology" factors into the fray. Digital or otherwise, scams continue to crop up in one form or another, and, in ever ingenious ways. 

Can humanity cure "the need for scamming"?

But what will you/we do? 

Stop capitalism? Promote communism? Promote capitalism with furious taxes? Find the gene responsible for megalomania/revenge/jealousy, and, attempt a slow and gradual genocide?!

We've done it all! (Somewhat. Or at least tried). History has all the answers. I don't have all the know-how. For e.g. the holocaust was all about the extermination of a certain race of people, because one set of people who believed they were a superior race, were radicalized to believe that the former group of people were in part inferior, and shrewd business minded people. This interpretation of "why" the holocaust happened, isn't all that complete. But capitalism played its small role in aggravating that "evil".

Let me bring you back to the grand saga for a moment. Do you think a "walled garden" is the solution? Humanity's cure for stopping all scams?! And now again, lets for a moment, forget you knew about walled gardens or scams...what can put a stop to rampant capitalism or aggressive sales marketing in society. (Think about the Wolf Gupta's of our society).

Will an "appstore" stop a "wolf"? The recent events surrounding seems to suggest people think that fortifying that garden they can prevent it to some degree. They are somewhat right. There is a small issue here. I will explore that in the next post.

Thankyou for reading.

Keep Android Open Saga (2/6)

A beautiful draconian garden

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 2.

Appstores grew in scale. A lot of applications started appearing on it. This software included all possibily imaginable categories - dating, matrimony, games, productivity, health. It is exactly hard to say when and why, but, a lot of nefarious apps came to be available on the appstores. On linux it wasn't much of a headline-news kind of a problem. On android...well, news spread like wild fire. Case in point is an app called Blue Whale. I am intentionally not going into horrific details about that phenomenon. 

Appstores (not just Google's) became a little bit stricter on allowing software to be available on their platforms. In Google's case, a few developers thought that Google's rules were too draconian or strict. For e.g., A clever android developer, made an app which might allow the owner of the phone to control the phone's wifi. And that app lived on the playstore for a while. Many people would have downloaded and became fans of the app. The os developers, on one fine one day, advocated against it. "Software shouldn't over-pressure your hardware". (There is valid reason for this). However, in the end, such applications would be dropped from the appstore. On the other hand, our developer would have had genuine users for this fictious app. They must have had some use for it. And now that google android os developers decided it is a bad thing the users and the concerned app developers, had to suffer disappointment.

That isn't the entire story, however, it is probably one of the reasons "many other" appstores came to sprout. These appstores were specifically for the android operating system. In other words, these alternative appstores were intended to supply software on android phones. But, how were people able to install such software onto the phones? I suppose a lot of MS Windows users of the 90s era might introspect and have an answer to that question. If the answer doesn't come to you, perhaps, become a little social and ask around. 

I made up a fictious scenario to explain why a "walled-garden" came to exist. And "bad fruits" in that garden would be plucked off. Perhaps the use of the word "draconic" in the title is a bit harsh. Because in this fictional scenario the corporate is correct. Why?! Phones are relatively delicate devices. They are powered by lithium batteries. They need to be operated with care. If some software exerted the battery too much the phone could blow up (or explode) on my hand or other body parts, (my eyes for e.g). I could sue google for damages. It is a pessismistic way of putting it. But on a more nobler note, Google is actually trying to protect you - the consumer, by bringing "restrictions" on its platform. 

I hope you'd come to understand that certain people will be concered about these restrictions. They are a small group. The others (i.e the majority) see a very colorful garden where they can get "software they want" downloaded and installed onto their phones.

You probably already understand that "bad fruit" in the context probably means an app that defies a corporate os developer's norms. In the next post, you will have a much wider concept of the term.

Thankyou for reading.

Keep Android Open Saga - (1/6)

Opensource And Appstores

Google already has started locking-down android, and, is a few months from completely locking it down. Visit keepandroidopen.org for more information on how it affects you, and, what you can do about it. I will try to make this series easy enough to help you understand why we (as a species) are in this situation now. This post is part 1.

Opensource was flourishing in the 2005s. Android was born. It was a phone operating system. Being opensource and everything, it meant one could theoretically acquire source code and compile it on their hardware. In reality this is a very complex task; not meant for ordinary folks. 

It was also the age of software proliferation. If there was an app that existed on the Macintosh and it was popular, it slowly made it way onto windows, and, yes eventually android. But that happens a little later in time. 

Before that came appstores. It is a kind of service available on the internet where one could obtain software they want onto their operating system - i.e the android smart phones. The android's appstore was called Google Play or sometimes Playstore. 

But opensource and software proliferation are not the same idea. One must pause and wonder about that last paragraph. Android is opensource. It is linux based. On its own, theoretically speaking, it really doesn't need an appstore. You didn't have to explicitly depend on an organization or corporation to be able to get software onto your phones or other desktop software. Android is kind of a derivative of linux (?). Many flavors of linux that existed around that time - ubuntu, fedora, archlinux, etc - they too had the same concept (as that of appstores) but it was commonly called "repositories". The primary "function" of the repositories was to make your computer "less vulnerable" or "more secure". And from this point of view, appstores became more "strict" or "harsh".

Ordinary people take many aspects of Android (or iOS) for granted. For e.g. many people are unaware how the phone is able to notify you of a new chat message (on whatsapp/telegram/instagram/whatever)? (To keep things short, it isn't like an SMS notification). There is a great deal of cloud infrastructure and related redundancies in place. When you buy a phone, nobody tells you that some part of your identity is going to live on that infrastructure. 

Appstores are a small part in that entire infrastructure. In the next part we will try to understand more about the various roles appstores came to have over the years. 

Thankyou for reading.