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Our justice system is good at drawing squiggly lines. It’s luckily based on intent and outcome and not exact wording. There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve

Our justice system is good at drawing squiggly lines. It’s luckily based on intent and outcome and not exact wording. There’s no reason the law couldn’t carve out a class of devices as “general purpose computing devices” which would exclude fine homemade / artisanal / hyper-focused kindles, gaming consoles, etc. of course these lines get moved around and tested in many ways. Much like how assault weapons are hard to define, and yet regulated in many places. But laws like this exist all over, and many do great good for the common cause. Accessibility is one example. If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. We have laws on return policies, lemons, telephone usage, and all sorts of consumer driven things. There’s plenty of indirect precedent.

mullingitover 6y ago
> If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. If this was really such a boon, wouldn't the devices where you can already do this have a huge market advantage? If so then why are we talking about forcing it on consumers and manufacturers?
- nwienert 6y ago
  Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why. I’m certain there would be a new generation of startups especially focused on selling digital goods. Further, you need to look at incentives. Apple would almost certainly respond by lowering their fees as a move to stay competitive. That extra cash trickling downstream would enrich many more people, who then would go on to create new things. Not sure you have an argument that it would already have happened if it was so much better.
  - mullingitover 6y ago
    > Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why. If the vast majority of devices already have this capability, what difference is it really going to make forcing it on the remaining 20%? Why hasn't Apple already been forced to lower their fees if they are the underdog in terms of market share? For that matter, why hasn't Google been forced to, given how easy it is to sideload?
    - nwienert 6y ago
      I think you've moved the goalposts quite a bit in this thread and I've engaged just to refute the sub-points, but the main points stand. Apple has dominance in many markets, like the US. In fact you could say the reason Android has such global market-share is because they commoditized their OS, ie, allowing for competition to drive down prices. So you're claiming the same forces wouldn't affect software? Android apps are generally cheaper, as well, though it's hard to pin why. The general principle of competition = lower prices applies here. I'd rather debate on what's right for consumers not whether some technical definition of a monopoly applies or anything like that. But to be honest there's not much more to be said - if you are against the legislation, then fine, it's a perfectly valid opinion. I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.
      - mullingitover 6y ago
        > I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already. This seems on the surface to be the libertarian position, but imho it's subtly authoritarian - you weren't able to convince most people to use the freely available unlocked hardware you're advocating for, so instead you'd like to use the full force of the law to make all product designers create what you want them to create. If the benefits of unlocked hardware were so evident, surely the consumers would already be reaping the rewards on the unlocked hardware they can buy right now?
        6y ago

mullingitover 6y ago

> If unlocking general purpose computing devices drove trillions in GDP and innovation, didn’t harm anyone, and generally improved consumers lives, I don’t see why we need a direct precedent. If this was really such a boon, wouldn't the devices where you can already do this have a huge market advantage? If so then why are we talking about forcing it on consumers and manufacturers?

nwienert 6y ago
Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why. I’m certain there would be a new generation of startups especially focused on selling digital goods. Further, you need to look at incentives. Apple would almost certainly respond by lowering their fees as a move to stay competitive. That extra cash trickling downstream would enrich many more people, who then would go on to create new things. Not sure you have an argument that it would already have happened if it was so much better.
- mullingitover 6y ago
  > Well Android has 80% market share, but there’s too many confounding factors to know why. If the vast majority of devices already have this capability, what difference is it really going to make forcing it on the remaining 20%? Why hasn't Apple already been forced to lower their fees if they are the underdog in terms of market share? For that matter, why hasn't Google been forced to, given how easy it is to sideload?
  - nwienert 6y ago
    I think you've moved the goalposts quite a bit in this thread and I've engaged just to refute the sub-points, but the main points stand. Apple has dominance in many markets, like the US. In fact you could say the reason Android has such global market-share is because they commoditized their OS, ie, allowing for competition to drive down prices. So you're claiming the same forces wouldn't affect software? Android apps are generally cheaper, as well, though it's hard to pin why. The general principle of competition = lower prices applies here. I'd rather debate on what's right for consumers not whether some technical definition of a monopoly applies or anything like that. But to be honest there's not much more to be said - if you are against the legislation, then fine, it's a perfectly valid opinion. I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already.
    - mullingitover 6y ago
      > I think legislating allowing more freedom on personal general computing devices would be a good thing with many benefits to society as I've enumerated already. This seems on the surface to be the libertarian position, but imho it's subtly authoritarian - you weren't able to convince most people to use the freely available unlocked hardware you're advocating for, so instead you'd like to use the full force of the law to make all product designers create what you want them to create. If the benefits of unlocked hardware were so evident, surely the consumers would already be reaping the rewards on the unlocked hardware they can buy right now?
      - 6y ago