12 ms·

I think the central question here is: .) whether you buy a phone as a piece of hardware and then own that hardware - which gives you certain rights regarding t

• tpxl 3y ago
  As far as I'm concerned if you 'bought' something, it should be yours to do as you please, including reselling and destroying it. If you didn't buy something, but rented it - for example a game on Steam or Epic Games store - then it should damned say so. It's a straight up lie to say you purchased something if you didn't.
  • rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
    Haven’t you always been able to resell and destroy the Apple products that you buy?
  • vladvasiliu 3y ago
    I don't think those alternatives are the right ones. You can sell your iphone without any issue, there are plenty of stores around me offering to buy used models to resell. I'm actually contemplating buying a used model. Can't do that with steam games. I'm also pretty confident that if apple and their services disappeared tomorrow, my iphone would keep on working just like it does today. Sure, no more updates, no more new apps, it would be frozen in the state it's in. Therefore, I think the question is whether an iphone is a "general computing device", or "an appliance". I can see the arguments for both, even though I tend to treat mine as the latter.
    • LMYahooTFY 3y ago
      > I'm also pretty confident that if apple and their services disappeared tomorrow, my iphone would keep on working just like it does today. Sure, no more updates, no more new apps, it would be frozen in the state it's in. You can hardly call that "working like it does today". It doesn't. When features on it inevitably cease to work or be interoperable, you're screwed. And every day, you're probably more vulnerable to crime. If I buy a house, I can learn to maintain it and keep it secured. I can't do that with my iPhone.
      • Muromec 3y ago
        >If I buy a house, I can learn to maintain it and keep it secured. I can't do that with my iPhone. For the argument's sake, your ability to do things to your own house is restricted by zoning, by HOA and god forbid you from buying something of historical significance in Europe -- then you can't change anything inside or outside and you are responsible for it.
        • LMYahooTFY 3y ago
          True, and those issues are subjected to the same philosophical debates. Historical buildings are often categorically different, but HOAs (for a product manufactured and sold to you, as well as the land itself) are lambasted for the same reasons.
        • PeterisP 3y ago
          I think it's important to make a distinction between the restrictions imposed by law and restrictions imposed by the seller. For pretty much every thing there are restrictions on what you can do with it - if I buy a phone, I'm prohibited from smashing it into my neighbour's face, and grinding it up and baking into the cookies I sell would be a violation of health&safety rules, but that's still full ownership. Now, if the seller wants to impose extra restrictions above and beyond what the general society does, that's a different issue.
        • justeleblanc 3y ago
          > god forbid you from buying something of historical significance in Europe -- then you can't change anything inside or outside and you are responsible for it. What an exaggeration. Do you think such hyperbole strengthens your point? At best it makes you sound ignorant.
  • hooby 3y ago
    I agree. Anyone should be allowed to repair, tinker with and modify anything they own - at their own risk. When it comes to software, that's only possible to do with open source. With closed source you're only ever buying a perpetual usage license. (Unless you are a company buying out another company or it's assets, that is). It's complicated, because software and digital data is inherently different from physical goods - and all those concepts of "selling" a "copy" are just rather ramshackle attempts at making digital goods compatible with laws designed for physical goods.
  • mrighele 3y ago
    "If you didn't buy something, but rented it - for example a game on Steam or Epic Games store" I don't know about the other one, but in the Steam store I see "Buy" buttons, not "Rent". "Buy <game name>" in the store page, then when you go a "Shopping Cart", where you can "Purchase" the game. To me (and to the average people, I guess) it doesn't sound as a rental service at all. I'm sure that their ToS says otherwise, but I wonder how it would fare in a court case...
    • stavros 3y ago
      That's the GP's point, they rent you games but the language they use is "buy", and they shouldn't. They should say "rent" instead.
      • flohofwoe 3y ago
        It's not quite as simple, the main reason for the 'rent' argument is DRM (e.g. most Steam games will stop working if the Steam client can't phone home for a while), but some games on Steam are actually DRM free - it's a very small minority though.
        • tommica 3y ago
          Gog is a good example of how it should be done - you buy the game, and it can be played without needing their servers to be accessible
      • Closi 3y ago
        You are (usually) buying a perpetual licence which is revocable, not renting a licence, so the language is correct. Common usage of the word 'buy' also applies here - the term 'rent' would be confusing to a customer and would usually imply it being time-limited (often days).
        • stavros 3y ago
          Yeah, if I'm buying a revocable license, the language should be "renting". It's not the same as having ownership over the thing I'm licensing.
  • beebeepka 3y ago
    Games on steam are not rented
    • herbst 3y ago
      They pretty much are according to their ToS
      • beebeepka 3y ago
        Laws trump ToS of any kind. Do you disagree with that? If things are different in your jurisdiction, please do share how and why
        • herbst 3y ago
          I agree (hence the whole topic) however in practice steam has full control. If steam servers shut down tomorrow and the client destroys itself most games will refuse to start.
        • blendergeek 3y ago
          > Laws trump ToS of any kind. Do you disagree with that? What do you mean by that? The steam ToS (which are enforceable by law) make pretty clear that Valve can revoke your access to any game at any time. Further, your access is dependent on Valve's continued existence. The argument that you are "buying a license" is like saying you "buy a rental contract" at a car rental place. The contract you have with Valve to play the game allows you to play the game for an indefinite period of time, but crucially only while Valve is still in business and while they let you play the game. This is in the ToS and in the USA there is no reason (IANAL) that I see to think the courts won't enforce this contract. > If things are different in your jurisdiction, please do share how and why Which law in your jurisdiction makes the Valve ToS feel more like a purchase and less like a rental?
          • oblak 3y ago
            Are you seriously arguing that ToS somehow override laws? Since you're not a lawyer (your words) and seem to care about US laws (I don't), I am not sure what's the point of this response to a topic about digital purchases in the EU.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • hayst4ck 3y ago
    If we were being very pedantic, what would you say is the test of ownership? If you buy an iPhone you can sell it or destroy it, so it meets those requirements of ownership. You can't destroy something you're renting, so you clearly aren't renting an iPhone. How would I know if I own a device or not? If you buy an iPhone, but don't think you own it. Why don't you think you own it? If your response is "because I can't run the software I want to on it," is that a problem with the perception of what you bought or is that a violation of the idea of ownership? If that's a violation of the idea of ownership, why?
    • letier 3y ago
      If you’re required to accept license agreements to be able to use the device and those agreements restrict you in how you use it, then I see this as a restriction to your ownership. Especially if the terms are opaque and not clearly communicated before the purchase.
    • PeterisP 3y ago
      Property law has been deep on all the various aspects of ownership for millenia, so there's a big "bundle of rights" which any specific type of ownership may or may not have. One test for "full ownership" is the contractual restrictions that come attached; i.e. whether the law is the only thing that limits what you can do with the thing, or whether there are some extra conditions (which are not that rare in e.g. real estate deals for as long as we have recorded history); that's generally considered ownership but a restricted one. On the other hand, if you aren't prohibited to do that thing but simply aren't capable of doing it, that would still be considered unrestricted ownership. But something that is a key part of ownership - especially with respect to various "buying" of e.g. games - is the ability to transfer it to others. If you can't give or sell the thing you've purchased to someone else, that clearly indicates that you don't own it.
    • tchalla 3y ago
      > If we were being very pedantic, what would you say is the test of ownership? Here's the concept of ownership for private property in German Law. It's broadly defined as 1) Exclusive Rights, 2) Transferability, 3) Protection against Unlawful Interference, 4) Compensation for Expropriation and 5) Inheritance and Succession.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • justeleblanc 3y ago
    Do you buy movie tickets, or do you rent them?
    • AlexandrB 3y ago
      Unlike with games, you can resell movie tickets. So you buy them.
      • justeleblanc 3y ago
        https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/19/20874384/french-court-steam-valve-used-games-eu-law https://www.polygon.com/2019/9/19/20874384/french-court-stea...
      • anticensor 3y ago
        Movie tickets are actually issued to a certain ID in some jurisdictions.
• rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y ago
  Yes. The HN crowd is overcomplicating the issue, and Apple has as much a right as an individual to design their platform as they wish. We like to talk about giving businesses the freedom to build the products that they want and keeping regulators out of the picture and instead letting people vote with their money, yet when people actually vote with their money to buy Apple products precisely for how they are built, we want to regulate the crap out of the company. It doesn’t make sense.
  • wvenable 3y ago
    I see no moral issue with government regulation to make our lives better. People would still buy cars if seatbelts weren't a standard feature. They'd still by deodorant if it put holes in the ozone. Vote with their money only works if companies make a product you can buy. Where's the iPhone "unlocked edition" that costs $20 more that I can buy? They don't make it.
    • wruza 3y ago
      $appliancevendorname also doesn’t make +$20 programmable washers. Arguments like this only appear when there’s an urge for an argument. Just buy an unlocked android phone, they exist with similar or better hw for $500 less.
      • 221qqwe 3y ago
        Technically there is no Android phone which has a better CPU/GPU than the latest iPhones. Not that it matters too much nowadays...
        • charcircuit 3y ago
          iPhones are behind on including ray tracing acceleration in their soc.
          • 76SlashDolphin 3y ago
• hayst4ck 3y ago
  While that might be the choice we're making and it seems like the first is obviously what owning a device should be like. What if I actually want to pay a fee to a tightly controlled service? Like what if I do the math and determine that that benefits me more than actually owning the device? Should a regulatory agency be able to come in and tell this tightly controlled service they aren't doing it right when I am a happy customer? > when discussing what rights a person should get for a piece of hardware they bought. You already pre-decided that the first answer is correct without actually asking if anyone prefers the second.
  • atoav 3y ago
    > What if I actually want to pay a fee to a tightly controlled service? Like what if I do the math and determine that that benefits me more than actually owning the device? Should a regulatory agency be able to come in and tell this tightly controlled service they aren't doing it right when I am a happy customer? I think the default should be protection. Just like it is okay for a BDSM-scene to exist where people inflict consensual pain onto each other — the default must still be to protect the individual's right to bodily autonomy and protection from harm — even if some people, sometimes opt to waiver these rights Signing away those rights should always remain a special case and not the default. Same for ownership rights, because if the only choice is leasing, ownership ceases to exist. While when ownership exists you could still easily enter a lease.
  • hooby 3y ago
    No, the second is perfectly fine. I pay a monthly fee for internet - and that's the admission fee I have to pay to access the service. And I get sent a modem/router - a piece of hardware - that I don't own, but that's only being lent to me. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
    • zamnos 3y ago
      Are other devices allowed on the network though? If your want to rent your modem, that's your perogative. But I don't want to rent my modem. And AT&T being a convicted monopolist set precedent that means they actually are not allowed to stop me from using my own hardware. And if I'm using my own hardware, I don't need to rent their modem, which means I don't need to pay their modem rental fee.
• wvenable 3y ago
  The hardware and software, in any device, should not be so inextricably linked as to prevent the hardware from working at all without the software. Regardless of whether we are taking about iPhones, computers, cars, or farm equipment.
  • chenzhekl 3y ago
    But it is way too hard to cleanly separate the hardware from the software without introducing extra complexity and security issues.
    • wvenable 3y ago
      How so? The iPhone is literally just a computer and the vast majority of computers are cleanly separate from their software.
      • NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
        That's baloney - virtually no computers these days are "cleanly separate" from their software, at least outside of tiny microcontrollers. Do you have any idea how much software executes before they even get to the point where the operating system beings to boot? The idea that a CPU is going to come out of reset and start executing instructions that you provide at the reset vector is thirty years out of date.
        • 76SlashDolphin 3y ago
          Now that you mention it, I wonder what non-separable code would run on, say, a Corebooted Thinkpad running Linux with the Intel ME disabled. Surely that would be running 100% code that was not on it when it left the factory.
          • NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
            AFAIK, even fastidiously "liberated" core/libreboot Thinkpads like https://minifree.org/product/libreboot-t440p/ https://minifree.org/product/libreboot-t440p/ still end up using Intel's memory-reference-code for DRAM training etc. ref. https://doc.coreboot.org/northbridge/intel/haswell/mrc.bin.html https://doc.coreboot.org/northbridge/intel/haswell/mrc.bin.h... ... plus Intel's microcode.
• seydor 3y ago
  > you are just paying some sort of admission fee to a tightly controlled service iphones act as social signaling for alot of people
  • fortuna86 3y ago
    I've heard this, I haven't seen this. Maybe a smart phone was a status symbol 10 years ago, they are just commodities today.
    • anonzzzies 3y ago
      I do recognise it; large iPhones and Apple Watches are still about twice the price of the competitor. And people with Android phones are considered poor here.
      • sbuk 3y ago
        Where is "here"? Wouldn't you say that any party making those sorts of judgements (iPhone users are sheep/Android users are poor) aren't worth listening to? Isn't that more of a reflection of "here's" culture than the individuals choice? Is it not that an individuals choice to buy something is more than just a cost decision?
      • criddell 3y ago
        If you keep your phone 3 years, then that phone costs you a dollar or two per day and that’s within reach of many people. Lots of us keep the phone much longer than that and if you do plan on keeping the phone for a long time, Apple has a better reputation for supporting 5 year old devices than any budget Android maker. Apple’s hardware also has a pretty strong resale value. Apple phones are probably less expensive overall than lots of Android phones.
      • KyeRussell 3y ago
        There’s still a massive leap in logic that you aren’t including in your comment. It sounds like you should check your priors.
    • 3y ago
• baby 3y ago
  Related question: what does the user want? I doubt a majority of users are against side loading.
  • meling 3y ago
    I don’t think users really want to have to use 5 different app stores. I’ll probably opt to not buy an app if I first have to download another App Store app.
    • heavyset_go 3y ago
      That's not the case for billions of people on Android or macOS and their respective app stores.
      • Nursie 3y ago
        How many people actually bother to set up another App Store though? A subset of Kindle users who want “real” google apps? I very much doubt it’s billions.
        • heavyset_go 3y ago
          That's my point, Android can have more than one app store running yet people choose to use one primary app store. The nightmare scenario of having to run multiple app stores that the OP seems to be scared of is a non-issue on platforms with multiple app stores.
          • tut-urut-utut 3y ago
            In Android you don’t even need an App Store to install an app. All you need is to find an apk and download it. And providing an apk is exactly what many vendors do.
          • Nursie 3y ago
            Sure, but it also pours cold water on the idea of having alternative app stores in the first place.
• pierrebeaucamp 3y ago
  I disagree. While this dichotomy might hold true in other examples, in the case of iPhones it was always possible to push custom software to your own device for development purposes. There is a somewhat arbitrary limitation that those apps only work for a week until the process needs to be repeated (unless you enroll in Apple's Developer Program), but that's a different topic. The main demand in these "sideloading" discussions is therefore that Apple ought to make installing unlisted Apps easier. Personally, I don't understand why this should be of Apple's concern though. They already present a choice to app developers: Either go through their walled garden or impose a technical process on your (non-technical) end-users. Interestingly, there are already projects like AltStore that try to make the latter easier, which should be taken as proof that the whole "sideloading is impossible" argument is not really truthful. Why this rose up to the highest ranks of the political system is beyond me. PS: The existence of Jailbreaks further undermines the argument that you cannot control the software on your device.
  • gambiting 3y ago
    >>PS: The existence of Jailbreaks further undermines the argument that you cannot control the software on your device. How? It's like saying car manufacturers aren't really locking down their cars to hardware that only official dealerships own, because after all you can just buy a coding tool from some random AliExpress seller so it's fine. What are people complaining about. >> in other examples, in the case of iPhones it was always possible to push custom software to your own device for development purposes. Sure, which is still a process 100% controlled by apple and which they can pull out at any moment. Also let's not pretend it's anywhere near as easy as installing Galaxy Store on android and instantly getting out of Google's restrictions on the play store. Hopefully we'll get legislation that removes that possibility entirely. >>The main demand in these "sideloading" discussions is therefore that Apple ought to make installing unlisted Apps easier. I have no idea where you've seen such demands, because it's not true. No one wants apple to host apps which would otherwise be unlisted or outright banned. That wouldn't make any logical sense and would be an unjust cost on apple. I do however want to be able to install an alternative app store and install apps from it without apple butting their nose into it. Like courts have ruled in the past already - if I make some software for iOS and a person wants to buy that software, why should apple control whether I can sell them that software or worse - get a cut of the sale[0]. Because they made the platform? Well, you don't pay anything to Mercedes for making mercedes-compatible wipers, and I really struggle to see how this is any different. [0] assuming you don't use the app store of course in which case they should absolutely be paid.
• DCKing 3y ago
  Is that the central question? Most people using Android or Apple's very own macOS today use their device as if they're in the second situation with not a care in the world. Anyone's walled garden experience isn't meaningfully dependent on anyone else's sanctioned sideloading or not.
  • mark_l_watson 3y ago
    I more or less agree that most people just don’t care. It surprises me that maybe I don’t care anymore either. It has been years since I was a FSF member, and even though I have 3 Linux laptops that I enjoy occasionally, so much of my digital life is spent on a very nice iPad Pro, with just a few apps, besides Safari, that I use: a Mosh client because I always have a few screens open on a powerful remote server available with a perfect tmux and Emacs setup, the Chess.com app, ProtonMail and Calendar apps, and entertainment: YouTube and YouTube Music apps, and the Disney and many other streaming apps. Apple’s walled garden is most of my digital life, and at least for now, that is good enough. I can imagine switching to a Samsung foldable phone with a good docking story, but that will probably not happen. EDIT: another things that keeps me from caring about being in a walled garden is that so much of my Intellectual life is serviced by the cloud: Colab Pro for most deep learning experiments, the web based Leanpub authoring system, etc. Choosing devices and operating systems seems less important. When I travel, it does not matter much if I grab my smallest Linux laptop or my iPad Pro to take on a trip.
• Nursie 3y ago
  I don’t think it’s accurate to say you are conferred no ownership in the current model - this reads as typical tech binary thinking. It’s either fully under my control or I have nothing! For most people the ownership aspect is covered by being able to buy and sell the devices freely, and decide what apps to put on them. They are (and before I’m accused of being patronising, I am in this group) happy with a device that is capable but more or less on rails and has the sort of security provided by third party vetting. And we don’t care at all that it’s the device vendor doing it. I get the arguments about monopolies and the whole thing being damaging to business, which is in the end damaging to consumer choice. But honestly “I should be able to do whatever I want at all layers of the stack on my phone” is waaaay down the priority list compared to “I want a secure device that does bank stuff, generates tokens and whatever else without me having to be vigilant like I am on an open system”. So to me the rights argument is the red herring. And yes, “choice” quickly becomes an avenue of exploitation for the less tech savvy.
  • bjornsing 3y ago
    I agree. Legal ownership rights do not guarantee a particular feature set. For example your ownership of a car does not entail a right to easily install whatever software you want on all the CPUs in it. But I don’t think it’s right to call this binary thinking. It’s just incorrect thinking.
• NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
  Of course you own the hardware; you have the right to do whatever you want to it. If you want to use iPhones for target practice, have at it. You don't have the right to insist the manufacturer make it easy for you: your imagination about the uses to which the hardware could be put doesn't oblige the seller.
  • Terretta 3y ago
    Just like a PS5. No, the iPhone and iPad are appliances, not general computing, forcing division between hardware, firmware, and software is a technical design decision that prevents users from choosing a fully vertically integrated appliance device. People who choose consoles over building PCs, and pick iPhones over tinkerable Android, have a right to that choice, and corporations have a right to market to them.
  • ohgodplsno 3y ago
    >You don't have the right to insist the manufacturer make it easy for you I do, and it's easy, look: I believe Apple should let me install DOOM on the bootloader and make it easy for me to do so. If I had time to waste, I'd send emails every day, go protest in front of their HQ until I get what I want. Apple's allowed to not do anything about it, and I'm allowed to lobby my legislators to force Apple to do so. Because Apple's wishes are not law, not in any functioning country that I know of.
    • junofan 3y ago
      Don’t think legislators can force Apple to write software for your phone in the US at least. Maybe in places with fewer free speech protections.
      • ohgodplsno 3y ago
        No, but they can force Apple to reveal how to write that software, as well as provide the existing and necessary tools to do so. In the same way, they cannot force Apple to write me a new, alternative app store, but they can force Apple to open the existing APIs to others. Also, making you write software has absolutely nothing to do with free speech.
• Terretta 3y ago
  See deeper comment below, but yes, a corporation should have a right to market a curated console experience to mobile device consumers who prefer the fully vertically integrated experience. Especially thanks to other options and the small share Apple has by volume, it's no more appropriate to crack apart this appliance than it is to force PS5 or Xbox Series X to run PC games or support Steam.
  • anonymousab 3y ago
    > it's no more appropriate to crack apart this appliance than it is to force PS5 or Xbox Series X to run Those platforms should also be opened up, yes.
    • 76SlashDolphin 3y ago
      Well, the Series X already is - it is trivial to enable dev mode and it's implemented in a really clever way in which no regular user would dare to touch it. Really wish the PS5 had the same capability.
• sdeframond 3y ago
  I believe lawyerspeak has three separate concepts of "ownership": - usus, the right to enjoy the thing, - fructus, tge right to reap the fruits from the thing - and abusus, the right to sell, alter or destroy the thing. To "own" something generally means all of the above, althought it might not always be the case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usufruct