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amiga386today at 11:30 AM1 replyview on HN

- the "24 hours" is Google's first formulation of plausible deniability. They've likely done testing to hone that number to find a sweet spot.

- the "24 hours" is enforced by remotely-run code, meaning Google remains in control of it and can unilaterally alter how this works, any time they feel like.

Imagine you went to the shops, and found that one shop, while it had the goods on display, and could totally just let you pick them up and buy them, was required by the shop next door to make you go away and come back no sooner than 24 hours later. Meanwhile, the shop next door is right there, and it's open, and it has no such restriction.

On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction?

> unverified developers

The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google. That's the whole fucking point. Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.


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dataflowtoday at 12:03 PM

> On what planet do you think anyone other than the most dedicated of dedicated people would choose the shop that requires waiting a whole day to use it when the alternative has no such restriction?

I have no clue what you're referring to or worried about here, could you clarify? Are you worried Android is going to lose power users to iPhone? What are the alternative shops you're referring to here? We're not buying pastries.

> The developers in F-Droid are verified, just not by Google.

"Unverified" in my comment was a shorthand for "unverified by Google", not an insult.

> Google is not the be-all and end-all, but with this power-play, they are making themselves that.

The complain about that? Rather than wasting time complaining about the 24h wait?

I don't know if people's imaginations are lacking here, but there could easily be a world in which your 'alternative' verifier would still make you wait 24h (or longer). The wait is clearly a security mechanism, regardless of who makes you do it. (And yes, it could have been chosen for plausible deniability.) Is your actual problem the wait itself, or is your actual problem the identity of the entity making you do it, or is your actual problem that the power is too concentrated in one entity, regardless of the entity? These are very different issues with very different solutions.

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