Also it often only makes sense in the mind of the author...
My experience is that this is very true among a certain group of people, particularly literal-minded software enngineer types. But it is much less true in the general population where a single good analogy can accomplish more than pages of prose.
Analogies don't accomplish anything in basically all of the uses I've seen. People want them to serve as proof, but it's a lazy way of getting out of showing the validity of a conclusion.
Most people go into a new topic or new issue area with a basically neutral stance. They aren't looking to disprove the argument, nor do they even view it as an argument. Rather, they're thinking "OK, show me how this is relevant - tie it into my life and how it affects me, then I'll make up my mind based on my feelings afterwards" (in a far more subconscious way - basically nobody actually goes through these thoughts consciously). Analogies are your chance to do that. Get the right one and people associate your issue with something they already hold a positive position on. Get the wrong one and they just ignore you.
It's not without it's uses as a technique but you have to make sure the model the analogy constructs is, well, actually analogous to the situation you are modeling.
Analogies are an attempt to generalize an argument. Say we are trying to prove that "It will rain" is a valid conclusion from "If it is cloudy it will rain and it is cloudy". We can generalize this to "A -> B" & "B" -> "B", which you will recognize as an application of modus ponens from formal logic. Analogies try to use this power on fuzzier topics.
A normative principle like "We should build a new post office" are so abstract that they cannot be tackled head on (try defining "should" in the comments section and having no one point out a flaw to see why this is difficult). Because of this, we try to make comparison to other, seemingly similar, cases in an attempt to draw out the underlying logical structure. Because of this, I think they are a powerful and useful argumentative strategy.
If I were to argue that Apple's app store policies were harmful, then I would do just that. I would define terms, define the parties involved, show the harm and to which parties, maybe provide some examples, show which laws it violates, and maybe suggest solutions.
But I don't see why involving Cheerios at a brick and mortar retail store would help clear anything up.
I'm not versed in formal logic, but I believe it would be:
"A -> B", and I want to prove that "C -> D"
So I make the analogy that "A is similar to C, and B to D in some ways" thus then C -> D"
A lot of people will take this as a valid proof. But it has yet to be proven that A and C, and B and D are actually interchangeable.
Edit: To refer this back to the original argument, saying that the AppStore is like a brick and mortar store, and Cheerios is like Epic games is a nice analogy, but it can't possibly prove anything because they are just not the same thing.
What they may do though, is potentially align the reader's point of view with the writer's, but not necessarily towards the _right_ point of view, assuming there is one.
I think that's where the danger lies. In the end we are not explaining much, just passing a vision of the issue in terms of good/bad/meh depending on the analogy we choose.
That's also how we convince people a lot of stuff is just "against freedom", or "big <xxxx> acting selfishly" etc.
As you say it accomplishes something, people take a position very quickly. But is it a good thing ? I'm torn.
Like any powerful tool, it can be misused. But it can also do great good when used well. We live in a world surrounded by fiendishly complex systems with layers of abstractions and deep chains of emergent phenomena. Our primate brains aren't geared to process the consequences of our actions in a space that far removed from the forests where we evolved.
Analogies are one of the best tools I know to let us do that. But we do have to be careful about which analogies we choose to believe.
As other's have mentioned, perhaps this is only for literal minded thinkers. In Pre-suasion by Robert Cialdini metaphors are identified as the most effective persuasion device. Essentially, take something the audience understands well and use it explain something else.
An anecdote Cialdini provides is from a person who had many years of being the top life insurance salesman in the country. He used a metaphor of "when you check out, your life insurance checks in". The metaphor brought up feelings of abandonment and support in a way that people quickly understood and bought into.
Edit: The use of a life insurance salesman as an example is hilariously appropriate given the scam that whole life insurance is and how many people are fooled into buying it.
Whole life insurance is rarely necessary, and extremely expensive compared to the alternatives. See links below.
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/what-you-need-to-know-abou...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/debunking-the-myths-of-who...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/appropriate-uses-of-perman...
Source: Cheerios
Voltage is not like water pressure. If you have a high water pressure, water will inexorably be pushed through the pipe to relieve the pressure. That's so regardless of whether the pipe is 1 inch or 1 yard in diameter.
Voltage on the other hand means nothing without current. A high voltage on its own - like static electricity - will not move many electrons through the conductor.
A larger pipe will push more water at a lower pressure like a low resistance wire will move more energy at a lower voltage.
How do you propose you have voltage in a conductive medium (pipe) without current?
To me, it's not a bad analogy (nevermind you that electrons flow the opposite direction of current) - and I am well-versed in physics.
Analogies illustrate a concept. They don't establish reasoning or causation or proof.
I found this kind of thing a struggle in engineering math courses, where you'd often move equations into transformed spaces (frequency domain, whatever), perform operations on them, and then un-transform them to pop out a result. It's like, yes, the transform is obviously an immensely powerful abstraction, but I didn't really trust what was going on in there unless I did at least a few of the exercises from first principles as well, in order to prove to myself that doing operations in the transformed space was "safe".
analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
>analogies are not very good in arguments where the other person is resisting the conclusion you want to draw. they can be great when you are trying to teach/explain something to someone who trusts you though.
This is a great statement to show why analogies are bad and how they are abused.
>> C is similar to A in all ways that matter
> I have never seen this be determine-able in real life scenarios
this much I can agree on. when discussing human issues, analogies should be understood to be solely a rhetorical device, useful for persuading people, but not so much for getting to the truth of the matter.
Effectively illustrating the right concept is, in my opinion, the hardest part of communication. Analogies are powerful because they're intuitive illustrations.
> I typically see analogies used to support an argument, which analogies don't do
Yes and no. Analogies communicate concepts, and concepts support arguments. Analogies neither support arguments nor fail to support arguments; the concepts they communicate do that.
They're hard to use because they can be distracting: if you choose the wrong analogy, you may illustrate an irrelevant concept, rather than the one you mean to. That's why people argue: you mean to illustrate [concept A], but what pops into the receiver's mind is [concept A] AND [concept B]. So now you're not on the same page about what was just said.
Look at the cheerios example: how may related-but-not-the-same examples have popped up in the comments? It's a bad analogy: it needs to be much more narrow and specific.
Seriously though, there's good evidence that literally everything the human brain does is use analogies. The classic example being if I asked whether something is "in" your field of view. Without even thinking, you know how to conceptualize something that only exist in your mind as a physical container.
Apple isn't just banning apps from mentioning competing stores in app descriptions, it's banning them from mentioning competing stores inside the app.
The free-to-play model that Epic is relying on (and, with some variability, the other players are relying on, where the apps themselves are "free" with a paid service) somewhat breaks the conventions we're used to discussing, and there aren't really analogies.
The closest comparison I can make to these services are how PC MMORPGs (think World of Warcraft) used to be sold -- at retail, a user would make a single purchase that included a version of the game's client and a code that granted them some time in the game, so they'd be getting a "complete" product with the purchase. If Fortnite cost $5, but included whatever that'd convert to in VBucks, this discussion would be very, very different; same with if Spotify charged $10 for their app but included the first month free. In this case, Apple & Google, as retailers, would get their percentage (as non-recurring revenue), but Epic and Spotify would be free to continue booking 100% of revenue on an ongoing basis, but would need to invest a lot more in marketing, since free on-boarding is a massive driver for user adoption.
If I'm using a free app, and a bug causes it to break, would I report the bug to Apple or to the developer? If I saw something objectionable, or ugly, would I say that iOS is ugly, or would I blame the developer? I think that regardless of the price, when I'm using an app and I find myself in the state of attributing the experience to the developer instead of Apple, that means I'm playing in the developer's space, not Apple's. Getting past all of the analogies, what Apple is doing is saying that you're not allowed to mention competing storefronts even when you're inside your own space.
In contrast, if I went to a app store page and the app store crashed, or the app didn't download, I'd contact Apple, because I'm not in the developer's space there, I'm in Apple's.
There is some fuzziness there, and there's also some fuzziness around whether or not it's OK for Apple to decide what you can and can't do inside your own 'app space.' Different people can have different opinions on that, and ultimately the courts/Congress will probably end up deciding whether that is Ok.
But that's the non-analogy, purely app-centric explanation I would use -- Apple is dictating what you can say to customers when you're in your own space, and they're doing that to a degree that goes beyond protecting users from malware or fraud. I personally think it's very difficult to argue that keeping people from mentioning prices elsewhere is a restriction that's purely designed to protect users. It's not really the same as restricting phishing attacks or fraud inside of an app would be. So to me, that makes me feel less charitable about arguments that Apple should be able to have that kind of control about what happens in the developer's space, because I don't see a compelling reason for them to have that power.
https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/payment-policies/offers-b...
>Buyers and sellers can't:
>In any communications with another eBay member, refer to or promote external websites that facilitate sales outside of eBay
I would count sending a "letter" along with your product to be a form of communication.
>Use contact information obtained through an eBay transaction to offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay
This would prevent you from adding the insert to the package.
>Offer catalogs or other items that are used to order items directly outside of eBay
An insert is effectively a mini catalog. So they pretty much explicitly banned inserts. If you aren't even allowed to sell them for a price then sellers clearly wouldn't be allowed to give them away for free.
Sending an insert along with a product breaks 3 policy points at once. Can you describe which part of the policy actually allows inserts? All I see is that Ebay wants to have complete control over communications between seller and buyer.
>>In any communications with another eBay member, refer to or promote external websites that facilitate sales outside of eBay
>I would count sending a "letter" along with your product to be a form of communication.
This means one can't use eBay's messaging for promotion, but one can use one's own product. The way you're interpreting this would mean that no one selling in eBay could send letters (or even advertise) anywhere outside eBay because it might reach an eBay member.
>>Use contact information obtained through an eBay transaction to offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay
>This would prevent you from adding the insert to the package.
This means one can't use the paypal address for direct mail for these purposes. However, you don't even have to know who the customer is to add an insert or to package your product such that it refers to your website.
>>Offer catalogs or other items that are used to order items directly outside of eBay
>An insert is effectively a mini catalog.
It's basically Google's rule on not promoting other App Stores in their Play Store.
Fact: Plenty of people do this in practice and eBay is not cracking down. Maybe it's not interpreted the way you think it is?
This analogy does not apply to Apple, because it has no motivation to price match, because nobody is allowed to sell i-device apps except for Apple.
Edit: in addition, if we follow your analogy further, Costco could demand 30% from Apple on all purchases made through the App Store, for iPhones sold in Costco. Just like Apple demands a cut of all purchases after they sell a product in their store.
This might not be all that popular a plan with Cheerios, but perfectly normal with all kinds of items available at retail stores: For instance, Simple Modern water bottles will come with a discount coupon for buying replacement caps at a discount on the manufacturer's online store. Some printers have, inside the box a leaflet for ink discounts. At least one major vacuum cleaners brand will point you to their website for replacement bags, with an online coupon. Or, back in software, if I buy a Nintendo Switch at GameStop, I will still get ads on menus for buying games online, even though my relationship with Nintendo started at GameStop.
All kinds of retailers carry the products I mentioned, even though there really is far more profit in habituating the customer to buying the consumables in your own store than in the original item. You could argue whether this is good or bad, legal or illegal, but the examples definitely exist.
BTW, all analogies are flawed in some manner or another. If you take away the abstraction, every single one breaks down. And then you end up talking about the intricacies of the thing you wanted to abstract away making it moot! :)
The cheerios example probably involves a fair bit of negotiation between manufacturer and retailer. Whereas apps can discount whenever they choose, without permission.
It's not like there aren't at least somewhat better analogies they could have used. Imagine if you bought an Apple Phone from Best Buy and then that compiled version of iOS wasn't allowed to mention anywhere that you could get support from Genius Bars instead of Best Buy. Or imagine if you bought a vacuum cleaner from Walmart, and the manufacturer wasn't allowed to include any inserts inside of the box that linked to their own store for replacement parts.
But even with a better analogy, why is this argument being brought up in this specific section? I expected their user freedom section to talk more about sideloading, or right to repair, or emulation, and they just can't stop fixating on the 30% fee.
From the same section:
> Here’s an example of how this problem manifests itself: Epic produces once of the most popular video games of all time, Fortnite. If a Fortnite player were to buy an upgrade in the App Store, that individual might be charged $9.99. However, that same upgrade costs only $7.99 when purchased directly through Epic.
Cool argument, but that has nothing to do with user freedom; users are still perfectly free to buy upgrades from Epic directly.
It feels like they came up with one objection and then poorly pasted it into 3 sections.
Because MRP (minimum resale price) is often illegal (bit it's complicated https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...)
MAP (minimum advertised price) is more permitted, which is why Amazon often makes you put items in your cart to see the discounted price.
That's how it used to work at the grocery store I worked at. The flyers were prepared a couple weeks in advance, the sales matched up with every other store that ordered food from loblaws, it was ordered down from loblaws to the stores that carry the products they ship and sell what things would be on sale on any given week throughout all the stores.
This is why superstores, extra foods, the independent grocers and super valus all have the same stuff on sale the same weeks.
The only things the store decided to put on sale was clearance stuff getting close to the expiry date.
So like you physically cut up the cheerios box and can get 50 cents off cheerios at participating retailers.
One of Apple's core arguments for why they need this kind of control is privacy. If someone is launching what is essentially a PR campaign against Apple, one of the first things to do is to make sure the website doesn't have any appearance of violating people's privacy.
Make it work without JS, make it work without cookies. Be conscious of the target audience. Requiring cookies is a really tone-deaf decision for them to make.
IMO this is a false dichotomy. Epic and Spotify are not the size of Apple, but they're still giants compared to little indie developers.
I trust indie devs way more than any of the BigCos. It's just natural: the fewer customers you have, and the less market power you have, the more you care, the more you have to care, about your individual customers.
Indie developers / startups either become the size of Epic and Spotify, or get bought by companies the size of Epic, Spotify and Apple.
Find me the indie developers / startups that cannot be "corrupted" (converted?) and I'll invest as soon as they IPO.
Meanwhile, there are some companies that make it their business model to build trust at scale. Apple, Valve, Nintendo, Microsoft (exclusively for enterprise clients) are a few great examples.
A couple years ago I would have said Bay 12 Games, but they recently sold out to Valve, despite almost (more than?) two decades as independent.
Trust no one, trust nothing.
I'd be happy to view them differently. I just haven't been educated on the differences.
It focused mostly on the 30% apple charges, which is both common and reasonable. It mentions the anti competitive behavior but mostly how it inflates prices, which is exactly how apple is trying to frame the debate.
Also they have cookies on an entirely static site and disable scrolling until you press accept in the cookie dick bar (something you should probably never do, certainly not on a static site.) The thing is only readable in w3m/elinks.
In my (unpopular) opinion almost all of these "apps" should really be sites anyway. App store curation doesn't provide any reall security (especially since the apps are never instrumented) so someone so incapable of measuring the safety of software that they need that level of infantilesation should really only trust software to the same degree a browser does (that is, not at all.)
I don't care what Apple charges if I can install a binary without dealing with their store.
You just have to use a mac to do it and need to reinstall them every 7 days.
* The social media companies that had to deal with having their apps blocked because of Apple's puritanical stance on nudity.
* The recent rule change banning vaping and tobacco related apps.
* The inability for FOSS projects to easily distribute to users without paying a $100/year fee for something they want to give away. Users can only acquire it through the app store, or compile themselves and go through an inconvenient signing process to load it on. And I believe that's very temporary.
It's pretty offensive that a company thinks they can dictate what sort of software you run on your own device.
Epic doesn't need the tiny number of technical people to win their case. Epic needs the vast number of users to be on their side in order to win their case.
HN is not the target of that "manifesto".
For one, everything about the merchandising of a particular product in a big box store is agreed upon in advance between the retailer and the manufacturer before the product is placed in the store: the product placement on the shelves; what kind of manufacturer incentives (e.g. coupons) the retailer will honor for the product and how renumerations will be made from the manufacturer to the retailer for them; what kind of sales volume is required to trigger volume discounts, etc. These agreements are highly bespoke in a way that couldn't be scaled with the sort of volume that's on app stores.
Second - physical retailers are compensated by the manufacturer when they accept a manufacturer's coupon. The transactions are logged, summarized, and traditionally the physical coupons were collected and sent to the manufacturer. Barring a pre-negotiated agreement to accept less than face value in exchange for a coupon, the retailer isn't losing revenue on the deal. However, when an app publisher offers a means to circumvent the app store payment system, Apple/Google DO in fact face a loss of revenue.
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I'm generally supportive of at least some of Epic's arguments towards Apple, and I do believe that Apple (and multiple other FAANG companies) are engaged in anti-competitive behavior that's currently hurting the market. But a lot of the arguments I'm reading on the App Fairness site in particular seem really poorly phrased, almost to the point of being incoherent.
From their objection on "user freedom":
> Think about this a little differently: A box of Cheerios costs about $3.00 at Kroger, but sometimes Cheerios offers a coupon which lowers the price to $2.50 at any store that offers Cheerios. What Apple is doing is basically like Kroger telling Cheerios that they’re not allowed to offer coupons, and if they do, Cheerios is at risk of being kicked out of the cereal aisle. Consumers wouldn’t stand for this type of monopolistic behavior over their cereal, so why should they allow it for the apps used on their mobile devices?
I had to think really hard what they mean by this and how it actually relates to user freedom. Most resellers are allowed to choose their own prices for goods. I don't think this analogy corresponds at all to what Apple is doing. Apple is banning apps from telling consumers in app about other purchasing options. That's a totally different objection.
I'm pleased to see developers banding together, but if this is the result then I wish they'd spend more time making more reasonable, understandable arguments. If this site was my first introduction to the debate over app store policies, I think I'd probably be on Apple's side.