The elected official is held accountable if he doesn't do what the voters want. This one is doing what his voters want, so there's nothing to hold him accountable for.
You have the right to not vote on the moral grounds that you hate every candidate. You also have the right to crap your pants because every toilet is too dirty. By not making a decision, a decision is made for you that's worse than all of the options you could have decided between. You have the right to act in a way that causes the worst outcome to happen and rationalize it somehow as being a good person, when acting differently would have caused a better outcome to happen but you rationalize that causing a better outcome would make you a bad person. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
It's not even the trolley problem since the same person is tied across both tracks.
Implications are on the treasury side. Without treasury buyers the US dollar collapses or hyperinflates or the US government is bankrupt or some other widespread system failure, in any case the entire US economy falls apart without treasury buyers. But these things move slowly.
Make that 'since forever'. But there used to be a lot of insightful discussion inbetween the facebook-like parts. (Maybe it was the same on facebook, I wouldn't know because I never had a facebook account and you can't access the site without it.)
But I deleted my account (or at least randomized my password) somewhere in 2016 or so, so apparently 10 years ago I decided I wanted out. But I'm still reading it at least as much as HN. So fingers crossed they screw up badly enough this time :-D
Google doesn't have complete discretion. On Samsung phones, Samsung's discretion overrides Google's. On Xiaomi phones, Xiaomi's discretion overrides Google's.
Not really. Google sets strict boundaries for smartphone brands on what they can do software-wise. For instance, iirc, shipping the phone primarily with a non-Google alternative ROM means you won't get any play services on them, even if you want to have a secondary version with a standard Google ROM.
Google has essentially full control. Because they own security updates. Because banking apps already now often do not work without Google services. Etc. Etc.
It is a monopoly (regarding Android app developers), and is increasingly exploiting that to cash in.
Actually, the phone doesn't have play services if the vendor doesn't install play services. If the vendor installs play services then it has play services.
> For instance, iirc, shipping the phone primarily with a non-Google alternative ROM means you won't get any play services on them, even if you want to have a secondary version with a standard Google ROM.
Is this wrong? Sure they have agreements but does it include "don't sell phones with alternative ROMs"? It's licensed software and I don't think the phone makers want to end up on the wrong side of a Google lawsuit.
Why would they care about maintaining a reputation on a pseudonymous Hacker News account? They have tens of thousands of $, that's way better than not being known as a RWTer.
