7 ms·

This sits so unwell with me, gives such limitless tyrannical & dictatorial control to a company. > As much as people might look at this and think Apple is bein

This sits so unwell with me, gives such limitless tyrannical & dictatorial control to a company. > As much as people might look at this and think Apple is being heavy-handed, it comes down to the fact that iCloud, iOS, and the App Store are their IP and they can (within legal limits) set whatever terms they please. Agreed. That's exactly what it seems like. And that sounds like immoral, unjustifiable, sickening hell. That Apple gets to hold all the cards, no one else on the planet gets any say in how a device might be used. It seems to me like the law is immoral. The law is heavy handed, an idiot, and wrong. And it seems like Apple is a user/abuser of unjust power which it does not have any moral or ethical right to wield. > Especially for these sorts of arrangements, it seems like a problem to me if the platform/IP owner doesn't have absolute, final discretion over what happens. This sounds like a nightmare hell world to me. It contravenes the idea that any of us can ever be owners of anything. This sounds like the logic that says that only Tesla can repair Tesla cars, the logic that says only John Deere can repair John Deere tractors. This is an anti-human world, this is a bad world, this is immoral, this is wrong, this destroys & rots away at humanity as a can-do toolmaker, as an improver of the world about them. It consigns power away to fragile, remote, limited corporations. That is not a world I ever want to let happen to us. I tend towards aethism/agnosticism, but if there is a god, this flies against what graces the gods have given us to let ourselves be constrained so. It is unnatural & against the spirit of the human enterprise. I have no love for NSO Group. It feels great seeing such a group of shady, underhanded, anti-democratic punks get served. But this is absolutely going to be yet another move in the ongoing shift towards top-down combined technocratic/legal control. It's absolutely a demonstration of Apple wielding legal power to obstruct & defend that which it simply doesn't want to have to deal with, brushing aside something inconvenient. It's absolutely a battle over what terms of service mean & whether the world has any rights of their own. I for one am not cheering for Apple's victory in having their massive iron-clad armor further enhanced.

ziddoap 5y ago
>Agreed. That's exactly what it seems like. And that sounds like immoral, unjustifiable, sickening hell. That Apple gets to hold all the cards, no one else on the planet gets any say in how a device might be used. I'm not a big proponent of IP, but you're basically saying it is immoral, unjustifiable, and sickening as hell that Apple enforces the rules that Apple wants on Apple products/services, which were created and offered by Apple? Who should be making the rules if not the creator and maintainer of the product/service? Why is using another product/service not an acceptable alternative? I agree with the general direction of your comment, but certainly not with the same voracity that wouldn't allow my own company to create the rules for my own service offerings (within the confines of state/national law).
- catlikesshrimp 5y ago
  The law works fine when there is no monopoly. But since Apple has 50% of the market share, the law doesn't work well anymore.
  - rektide 5y ago
    This and more. I find it beyond farce that Apple & it's adherents chief defense seems to be that there are other people making products that aren't Lawful-Evil to humanity. If Google one day woke up and said, we're just going to try to do what Apple does to it's users, there would be nothing left. This pretense that Apple's behavior is anything but anti-competitive, anti-trust worthy rings so hollow to me. The excuses that there are other places to go completely fail to wash for me. It's as if these folks are saying the Carterphone victory was only won because AT&T was a monopoly. That's not how consumer rights work. That's not a solid enough platform for humanity to remain upright.
  - danaris 5y ago
    ...50% of what market?
    - tentacleuno 5y ago
      I assume OP is referring to the fact that Apple has 60% phone market share in the US[0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325606
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > But since Apple has 50% of the market share, the law doesn't work well anymore. Apple has 60% of the mobile market in the US[1]. [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-android-dominates-in-china-and-india https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-...
- Caligatio 5y ago
  Replace "Apple" by any traditional car company and you should immediately become concerned. Shouldn't a car company have absolute, one-sided control over the cars they sell? Like should the car stop working if you agreed to obey the speed limit but then sped? Or stop working if you didn't use their branded fluids?
Terry_Roll 5y ago
>This sits so unwell with me, gives such limitless tyrannical & dictatorial control to a company. Do you think Apple could get some "hackers" extradited if they don't live in the US? Its that old adage, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and some country's like Russia will point blank refuse extradition to the US as will other countries. Any business can put what they like in their terms and conditions, those T's & C's are still tertiary to regional and state law if they are even enforceable. Lawyers will let your put what ever you like in a contract, whether its reasonable and enforceable is another matter which only judges can decide. Now if you live in the EU, there is nothing wrong with reverse engineering code, the EU court has ruled this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809559 but the definition of a bug can be more vague because a coder might suggest a user reported bug is working as its coded, so the coder may not see it as a bug but the user might and her you just need to convince the judge. Grey area. Another example of what was a grey area of law was initiating an email send to an email server in order to track whether an email address existed or not. Once the status of an email address was known abort the reset of the communication. It was useful for tracking people globally, and spam filters were not that good at picking this up in the past. Anyway that process has effectively been ruled illegal by the EU now as your email address supplied by your employer has to be treated as a private and personal email address so then other personal & privacy laws come into play to make the game more complicated, but you used to be able to track people globally in businesses & military to spot when people had left an employer or been moved in some cases. Then you have the NSA putting out reverse engineering tools for free like https://ghidra-sre.org/ https://ghidra-sre.org/ making one wonder what is the point of law especially when you reproduce parts of the AT&T infrastructure in Romania? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135559 Now whilst the law might seem absolute, legislation is very intentionally left vague and its judges who make it closer to being absolute with narrow specific definitions when they make a judgement, but if there's one thing I have learnt, interpretation of the law can be surprisingly vague even by judges. So all in all this could actually be a marketing or reputation management exercise or both involving lawyers to reassure Apple customers they have made the right purchase. Running an entity beit a business or a govt can be incredibly nuanced like playing a game of chess, and sometimes its not the initial action we need to be concerned with but the resulting action.
chrisfinazzo 5y ago
Put another way, I don't really have a problem with 3rd parties - or individuals who are so inclined - repairing Apple gear, but the recent moves have shown that the company would much rather deal with the small headaches of setting up and administering such a program if they can set the terms under which it happens. Otherwise, legislators (think: US Congress) will do it for them, with disastrous results. Doing it like this means everybody gets something out of the deal: Consumers can choose the best repair option for them, Independent shops now can take Apple business and without worrying about warranties, and all of this happens in full view of the company and people who are watching them closely (Again, legislators). It's a closed system and Apple sets the rules, but just about anyone can participate. On the whole, that seems like a net good to me. * The same sentiment might apply to Deere as well, but I don't know enough about that particular situation to say if it would still be impractical to take a similar approach.

ziddoap 5y ago

>Agreed. That's exactly what it seems like. And that sounds like immoral, unjustifiable, sickening hell. That Apple gets to hold all the cards, no one else on the planet gets any say in how a device might be used. I'm not a big proponent of IP, but you're basically saying it is immoral, unjustifiable, and sickening as hell that Apple enforces the rules that Apple wants on Apple products/services, which were created and offered by Apple? Who should be making the rules if not the creator and maintainer of the product/service? Why is using another product/service not an acceptable alternative? I agree with the general direction of your comment, but certainly not with the same voracity that wouldn't allow my own company to create the rules for my own service offerings (within the confines of state/national law).

catlikesshrimp 5y ago
The law works fine when there is no monopoly. But since Apple has 50% of the market share, the law doesn't work well anymore.
- rektide 5y ago
  This and more. I find it beyond farce that Apple & it's adherents chief defense seems to be that there are other people making products that aren't Lawful-Evil to humanity. If Google one day woke up and said, we're just going to try to do what Apple does to it's users, there would be nothing left. This pretense that Apple's behavior is anything but anti-competitive, anti-trust worthy rings so hollow to me. The excuses that there are other places to go completely fail to wash for me. It's as if these folks are saying the Carterphone victory was only won because AT&T was a monopoly. That's not how consumer rights work. That's not a solid enough platform for humanity to remain upright.
- danaris 5y ago
  ...50% of what market?
  - tentacleuno 5y ago
    I assume OP is referring to the fact that Apple has 60% phone market share in the US[0]. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29325606
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > But since Apple has 50% of the market share, the law doesn't work well anymore. Apple has 60% of the mobile market in the US[1]. [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-android-dominates-in-china-and-india https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-...
Caligatio 5y ago
Replace "Apple" by any traditional car company and you should immediately become concerned. Shouldn't a car company have absolute, one-sided control over the cars they sell? Like should the car stop working if you agreed to obey the speed limit but then sped? Or stop working if you didn't use their branded fluids?

Terry_Roll 5y ago

>This sits so unwell with me, gives such limitless tyrannical & dictatorial control to a company. Do you think Apple could get some "hackers" extradited if they don't live in the US? Its that old adage, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and some country's like Russia will point blank refuse extradition to the US as will other countries. Any business can put what they like in their terms and conditions, those T's & C's are still tertiary to regional and state law if they are even enforceable. Lawyers will let your put what ever you like in a contract, whether its reasonable and enforceable is another matter which only judges can decide. Now if you live in the EU, there is nothing wrong with reverse engineering code, the EU court has ruled this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28809559 but the definition of a bug can be more vague because a coder might suggest a user reported bug is working as its coded, so the coder may not see it as a bug but the user might and her you just need to convince the judge. Grey area. Another example of what was a grey area of law was initiating an email send to an email server in order to track whether an email address existed or not. Once the status of an email address was known abort the reset of the communication. It was useful for tracking people globally, and spam filters were not that good at picking this up in the past. Anyway that process has effectively been ruled illegal by the EU now as your email address supplied by your employer has to be treated as a private and personal email address so then other personal & privacy laws come into play to make the game more complicated, but you used to be able to track people globally in businesses & military to spot when people had left an employer or been moved in some cases. Then you have the NSA putting out reverse engineering tools for free like https://ghidra-sre.org/ https://ghidra-sre.org/ making one wonder what is the point of law especially when you reproduce parts of the AT&T infrastructure in Romania? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29135559 Now whilst the law might seem absolute, legislation is very intentionally left vague and its judges who make it closer to being absolute with narrow specific definitions when they make a judgement, but if there's one thing I have learnt, interpretation of the law can be surprisingly vague even by judges. So all in all this could actually be a marketing or reputation management exercise or both involving lawyers to reassure Apple customers they have made the right purchase. Running an entity beit a business or a govt can be incredibly nuanced like playing a game of chess, and sometimes its not the initial action we need to be concerned with but the resulting action.

chrisfinazzo 5y ago

Put another way, I don't really have a problem with 3rd parties - or individuals who are so inclined - repairing Apple gear, but the recent moves have shown that the company would much rather deal with the small headaches of setting up and administering such a program if they can set the terms under which it happens. Otherwise, legislators (think: US Congress) will do it for them, with disastrous results. Doing it like this means everybody gets something out of the deal: Consumers can choose the best repair option for them, Independent shops now can take Apple business and without worrying about warranties, and all of this happens in full view of the company and people who are watching them closely (Again, legislators). It's a closed system and Apple sets the rules, but just about anyone can participate. On the whole, that seems like a net good to me. * The same sentiment might apply to Deere as well, but I don't know enough about that particular situation to say if it would still be impractical to take a similar approach.