4 ms·

People often accept restrictions on their freedom, but that does not mean those limitations aren't harmful. We should be able to install what we want on a gene

People often accept restrictions on their freedom, but that does not mean those limitations aren't harmful. We should be able to install what we want on a general purpose computing device. You can already see the Apple mentality creeping into other companies like Mozilla, who suddenly find it acceptable to limit user freedom for questionable reasons, and the normalization of stripped user liberties that Apple champions is worrying.

__d 6y ago
There's no law preventing anyone selling a smart phone without the limitations on your freedom you find objectionable. But similarly, there's no law requiring anyone to sell products that allow you to do whatever you want with them once they've been bought. You can argue for such a law, but competition law is a pretty weak place to start. Arguably, Apple is creating a market by their policies: the fact that it's not filled with competitors indicates only that most people don't care.
- growse 6y ago
  The current legal position / ambiguity is less interesting than the moral and principled question: do we want to live in a free market captialist society where manufacturers (typically with the upper hand in the retail power imbalance) get to continue to exert control over my property once I've come to own it through a legal transaction? Either we do, in which case what Apple is doing in perfectly reasonable, as is Walmart selling fridges that explode when you put someone else's milk in them ("It's in the contract!"), or it isn't. Things like the first sale doctrine give an insight into past legal thinking suggesting the latter. But it's far from simple to discern by just looking at the law.
  - __d 6y ago
    I agree that the principle is interesting. The music/video industry asserts that you're not allowed to play/show some media item that you've bought. Amazon doesn't allow you to resell or bequeath Kindle books. Caterpillar doesn't let you repair your own tractor. The first sale doctrine was established in a very different time.
ntsplnkv2 6y ago
Honestly, where is the actual harm done here? Again, this is just out of touch. Call it what it is - software companies want more money and want to use the market apple created for every last one of them for free.

__d 6y ago

There's no law preventing anyone selling a smart phone without the limitations on your freedom you find objectionable. But similarly, there's no law requiring anyone to sell products that allow you to do whatever you want with them once they've been bought. You can argue for such a law, but competition law is a pretty weak place to start. Arguably, Apple is creating a market by their policies: the fact that it's not filled with competitors indicates only that most people don't care.

growse 6y ago
The current legal position / ambiguity is less interesting than the moral and principled question: do we want to live in a free market captialist society where manufacturers (typically with the upper hand in the retail power imbalance) get to continue to exert control over my property once I've come to own it through a legal transaction? Either we do, in which case what Apple is doing in perfectly reasonable, as is Walmart selling fridges that explode when you put someone else's milk in them ("It's in the contract!"), or it isn't. Things like the first sale doctrine give an insight into past legal thinking suggesting the latter. But it's far from simple to discern by just looking at the law.
- __d 6y ago
  I agree that the principle is interesting. The music/video industry asserts that you're not allowed to play/show some media item that you've bought. Amazon doesn't allow you to resell or bequeath Kindle books. Caterpillar doesn't let you repair your own tractor. The first sale doctrine was established in a very different time.

ntsplnkv2 6y ago

Honestly, where is the actual harm done here? Again, this is just out of touch. Call it what it is - software companies want more money and want to use the market apple created for every last one of them for free.