I disagree. I think it is an “accident” that stems from organizations rather than anything sinister.

Companies generally want good parental controls, but let’s face it, it’s not the cash cow or particularly interesting.

This leads to understaffed teams of b-list developers with high churn, hence the overly confusing and half-baked features.

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rafaelmn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's nearly impossible to block YouTube on a smart TV without third party apps, even worse on non-android ones. And the app is not uninstallable. I don't think this is b-tier devs, feels like intentionall neglect.

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fpauser an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Companies generally want good parental controls

Nope, parental controls are fucked up since ages. And this is by design, and not because of some "b-list developers".

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pavel_lishin 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I would easily believe that Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc., explicitly staff these teams with childless adults.

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baq 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Given how easy it is for my 13yo daughter to get around screen time restrictions on iOS in ways I wouldn't believe are possible I'm not sure these people are even adults.

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selectively 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Apple has an engineering base that includes people who were recently children.

Think about it that way: why would they make things harder for who they were in the very recent past.

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lovich 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Apple has an engineering base that includes people who were recently children.

What?

I didn’t realize Apple with in the habit of hiring people straight out of high school instead of after going through enough university education that ends up with candidates in their early to mid 20s

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selectively an hour ago | parent [-]

Yep. They hire talent. University grads will work alongside red team folks that are maybe 22 years old and have been at Apple for two years. It's a thing.

I personally know more than one person who has a background along those lines.

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lovich an hour ago | parent [-]

I was more pointing out that 22+ year olds aren’t people who were “recently children” unless we’re continuing the trend of infantilizing adults farther into their 20s.

I was also under the impression that the faangs hired a larger % of post docs into their first industry job than most companies, so you’re also getting 27+ year olds as entry level engineers and scientists

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selectively an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I think someone who is 22 was 17 in the not that distant past.

Apple hires talent, they don't care about anything else. Again, I am speaking to things I know from my actual life and people I know in the physical world.

	▲	lovich 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Apple hires talent, they don't care about anything else. Again, I am speaking to things I know from my actual life and people I know in the physical world. How many people do they hire without college degrees? I am legitimately asking. I understand that was a thing in the tech world decades ago but my understanding was that big tech’s idea of “talent” has evolved to include mandatory education credentials like at least a bachelor’s degree if not further education. 18 is recently a kid 22 is someone whose been an adult for an entire Presidential term. I might be splitting hairs but I struggle to view that as “recent” Edit: removed an unnecessarily aggressive paragraph that added nothing to the conversation

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Am4TIfIsER0ppos 6 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

All those companies are, or used to be, based in the US. Those 22 year olds have only been allowed to drink for a year so by one measure they were recently children.

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hulitu an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Companies generally want good parental controls

Yeah, like Microsoft requesting that Firefox shall be (parentally) reviewed, while Edge happilly could connect to internet. Fixed by creating a local account.

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ToucanLoucan 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Parental controls and accessibility both suffer from the fact that they are good features to add but fundamentally do not drive revenue. They only exist in the average as much as is required by regulation.

No business would build wheelchair ramps unless they were made to, that's why we make them. There's no reason to not do the same for parental controls.