4 ms·

OK, then explain the consequences to me. A store-owner decides he wants to put an arbitrary restriction on the types of items he sells in his store. Let's say

OK, then explain the consequences to me. A store-owner decides he wants to put an arbitrary restriction on the types of items he sells in his store. Let's say, perhaps, that a grocery store decides to stock only Organic produce. What's the moral harm?

cousin_it 17y ago
It's proportional to market share. I think we both agree that such a move would be immoral for a monopolist (making developers stupid... stifling progress... blah blah). Assume it causes X amount of moral harm. Then someone with 50% market share would cause X/2 moral harm by the exact same mechanisms. 1% market share, X/100 moral harm. Think of it as voting for Hitler: less evil than being Hitler, but still evil.
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  Sorry, but I still don't see it. The owner of a store has a moral obligation to sell all possible goods in that store? If I have a grocery store, I need to sell every possible foodstuff? I'm not allowed to decide that I want to sell only Organic produce?
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    Think of the company store in a little West Virginia mining town in the pre Union days. But the analogy actually supports your position: it's clear that there are other app stores out there.
krschultz 17y ago
That's not a good analogy. Those selling non-organic produce have plenty of other places to take their goods. They are commodities. Anyone who has invested in a language layer technology can't do that. You can't take your Flash -> Objective-C compiler and sell it anywhere else. Apple just forced you to lose all of your investment for no good reason. It's like offering communal grazing areas. A bunch of ranchers decide to move their cattle down to your area because it makes economic sense at the time. Once they arrive, you put up a fence and say fuck you. Now they spent their time and money moving down there, and have nothing to show for it. Sure you didn't have a contract but they have real material losses due to the changes in basically, the TOS on your grazing land. Catlle might die, ranchers might not be able to afford moving them back and go out of business. The same applies with Apple. I would hate to be a startup in this space right now.
- michael_dorfman 17y ago
  But Apple never offered a "communal grazing area". The iPhone has been a closed platform from day one, and everybody developing for the iPhone already had a metric buttload of restrictions on them. If the ranchers decided to move their cattle to an area in the hopes that they might find communal grazing available, well, they took a risk, and lost. That's business. Sellers of non-organic produce have plenty of other places to take their goods, and developers of applications for mobile devices/smartphones have plenty of other devices they can develop for.
  - jongraehl 17y ago
    You appear to be arguing that we shouldn't complain that Apple's closed platform is obnoxious, or hate Steve Jobs for being an anti-programmer jerk, or encourage people to avoid Apple. Nobody said that some existing legal or moral authority should force Apple to treat us nice.
  - krschultz 17y ago
    You still haven't grasped that you are comparing commodities to non-commodities. If you just invested a bunch of time into a source to source translator for the iPhone, you can't just take that somewhere else. It is entirely useless elsewhere. Of course Apple doesn't HAVE to accommodate these people, but it is an egregious move for both developers and the users. I don't actually see what the gain is for Apple from this other than slighting Adobe.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
varjag 17y ago
If it's the only store in the town, there's plenty of harm.

cousin_it 17y ago

It's proportional to market share. I think we both agree that such a move would be immoral for a monopolist (making developers stupid... stifling progress... blah blah). Assume it causes X amount of moral harm. Then someone with 50% market share would cause X/2 moral harm by the exact same mechanisms. 1% market share, X/100 moral harm. Think of it as voting for Hitler: less evil than being Hitler, but still evil.

michael_dorfman 17y ago
Sorry, but I still don't see it. The owner of a store has a moral obligation to sell all possible goods in that store? If I have a grocery store, I need to sell every possible foodstuff? I'm not allowed to decide that I want to sell only Organic produce?
- stcredzero 17y ago
  Think of the company store in a little West Virginia mining town in the pre Union days. But the analogy actually supports your position: it's clear that there are other app stores out there.

krschultz 17y ago

That's not a good analogy. Those selling non-organic produce have plenty of other places to take their goods. They are commodities. Anyone who has invested in a language layer technology can't do that. You can't take your Flash -> Objective-C compiler and sell it anywhere else. Apple just forced you to lose all of your investment for no good reason. It's like offering communal grazing areas. A bunch of ranchers decide to move their cattle down to your area because it makes economic sense at the time. Once they arrive, you put up a fence and say fuck you. Now they spent their time and money moving down there, and have nothing to show for it. Sure you didn't have a contract but they have real material losses due to the changes in basically, the TOS on your grazing land. Catlle might die, ranchers might not be able to afford moving them back and go out of business. The same applies with Apple. I would hate to be a startup in this space right now.

michael_dorfman 17y ago
But Apple never offered a "communal grazing area". The iPhone has been a closed platform from day one, and everybody developing for the iPhone already had a metric buttload of restrictions on them. If the ranchers decided to move their cattle to an area in the hopes that they might find communal grazing available, well, they took a risk, and lost. That's business. Sellers of non-organic produce have plenty of other places to take their goods, and developers of applications for mobile devices/smartphones have plenty of other devices they can develop for.
- jongraehl 17y ago
  You appear to be arguing that we shouldn't complain that Apple's closed platform is obnoxious, or hate Steve Jobs for being an anti-programmer jerk, or encourage people to avoid Apple. Nobody said that some existing legal or moral authority should force Apple to treat us nice.
- krschultz 17y ago
  You still haven't grasped that you are comparing commodities to non-commodities. If you just invested a bunch of time into a source to source translator for the iPhone, you can't just take that somewhere else. It is entirely useless elsewhere. Of course Apple doesn't HAVE to accommodate these people, but it is an egregious move for both developers and the users. I don't actually see what the gain is for Apple from this other than slighting Adobe.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

varjag 17y ago

If it's the only store in the town, there's plenty of harm.