4 ms·

Wouldn't the best way to look at this to be that the phone is Apple's property, and therefore they have the right to do anything with it? Including not selling

by rhelz 3y ago

Wouldn't the best way to look at this to be that the phone is Apple's property, and therefore they have the right to do anything with it? Including not selling to you all the property rights, and reserving some for themselves? For me, the central contradiction of this kind of rights-based argument is this--the stronger you make property rights, the more justified actions like Apples seems to be, because, after all, they are the ones who really own the phone. I really don't think a property rights argument has any suasion here at all.

Ajedi32 3y ago
> Including not selling to you all the property rights, and reserving some for themselves? They could do that, but they don't. I don't recall having to sign a rental agreement stating that I don't actually own the phone and I'm only allowed to purchase Apple-approved applications in order to get an iPhone. If Apple was forced make their customers go through that process then the downsides and anti-trust problems associated with such restrictions would be far more explicit.
- rhelz 3y ago
  Consider that the phone is useless w/o its operating system, etc, and you did not purchase that software; you only bought a license to use it, according to some terms and conditions.
zuhsetaqi 3y ago
They did own the phone until they sold it to a customer. After the customer bought it Apple no longer owns the phone but the customer does.
- rhelz 3y ago
  I mean, you are talking as if the rules governing the use of property are a natural kind. As if there is one and only one set of terms and conditions which apply to any sale of anything at anytime. The concept of "property" and the specific set of rights and obligations surrounding it are created by people, and can (and have been) rewritten all the time.
Nevermark 3y ago
Apple does not have the legal right to rescind the “rental” and retrieve your phone. So it doesn’t, in fact, own it.
- rhelz 3y ago
  Fun fact, part of the terms and conditions for buying an iPhone is you grant Apple--or anybody they care to designate, an "irrevocable" license to enter your house and repossess the phone until the phone has been 100% payed for. Apple can do this at any time, for any reason---you don't have to be late on your payments, etc.
seec 3y ago
Well, if they really own the phone, you had better make a strong argument on why I should pay for it. If users were renting the phone for less than it cost to make, I guess you could have an argument about the device just being a necessary tool to access a service, including the app store (just like the alm-in-one modem/routers of telcos in EU). But that is hardly the case, users pay for iPhones, and quite a lot of money at that, in fact much more in average than buyers of other brands. So now you REALLY need to explain how they can sell the phone for such a large amount of money and still retain ownership because the way I see it one of these statements cannot be right or it would be both illegal and something users really wouldn't agree to if it were presented like that to them. The reality is that Apple is abusing its power over a device they already transferred ownership to someone else, because they already got money for it. Any other arguments are a mischaracterization of the situation and the only reason Apple got away with so much control so far is because we collectively (as a society) didn't completely understand what it meant. But now we are trying to fix and bad faith argument like yours do not help at all...
- rhelz 3y ago
  // bad faith argument like yours do not help at all.. // Lets take a step back mate :-) and try to look at the situation the way it is, not the way we wish it would be. Software has always been licensed, not sold. And the licensing agreement has always come with terms and conditions dictating what you can and cannot do with your copy of the software, e.g. it can be stipulated that you don't attempt to disassemble it, or make copies and give them away to your friends, etc etc. In particular, you will lose your license to use the software if you break any of those terms and conditions. And inasmuch as an iPhone is just an expensive brick without the software, the reality is that Apple will always have very broad discretion in stipulating how you will use your iPhone. I don't like it any more than you do, but that's just the reality of the situation, and acknowledging the ugly truth is the very antithesis of a bad faith argument.

by rhelz 3y ago

Ajedi32 3y ago

> Including not selling to you all the property rights, and reserving some for themselves? They could do that, but they don't. I don't recall having to sign a rental agreement stating that I don't actually own the phone and I'm only allowed to purchase Apple-approved applications in order to get an iPhone. If Apple was forced make their customers go through that process then the downsides and anti-trust problems associated with such restrictions would be far more explicit.

rhelz 3y ago
Consider that the phone is useless w/o its operating system, etc, and you did not purchase that software; you only bought a license to use it, according to some terms and conditions.

zuhsetaqi 3y ago

They did own the phone until they sold it to a customer. After the customer bought it Apple no longer owns the phone but the customer does.

rhelz 3y ago
I mean, you are talking as if the rules governing the use of property are a natural kind. As if there is one and only one set of terms and conditions which apply to any sale of anything at anytime. The concept of "property" and the specific set of rights and obligations surrounding it are created by people, and can (and have been) rewritten all the time.

Nevermark 3y ago

Apple does not have the legal right to rescind the “rental” and retrieve your phone. So it doesn’t, in fact, own it.

rhelz 3y ago
Fun fact, part of the terms and conditions for buying an iPhone is you grant Apple--or anybody they care to designate, an "irrevocable" license to enter your house and repossess the phone until the phone has been 100% payed for. Apple can do this at any time, for any reason---you don't have to be late on your payments, etc.

seec 3y ago

Well, if they really own the phone, you had better make a strong argument on why I should pay for it. If users were renting the phone for less than it cost to make, I guess you could have an argument about the device just being a necessary tool to access a service, including the app store (just like the alm-in-one modem/routers of telcos in EU). But that is hardly the case, users pay for iPhones, and quite a lot of money at that, in fact much more in average than buyers of other brands. So now you REALLY need to explain how they can sell the phone for such a large amount of money and still retain ownership because the way I see it one of these statements cannot be right or it would be both illegal and something users really wouldn't agree to if it were presented like that to them. The reality is that Apple is abusing its power over a device they already transferred ownership to someone else, because they already got money for it. Any other arguments are a mischaracterization of the situation and the only reason Apple got away with so much control so far is because we collectively (as a society) didn't completely understand what it meant. But now we are trying to fix and bad faith argument like yours do not help at all...

rhelz 3y ago
// bad faith argument like yours do not help at all.. // Lets take a step back mate :-) and try to look at the situation the way it is, not the way we wish it would be. Software has always been licensed, not sold. And the licensing agreement has always come with terms and conditions dictating what you can and cannot do with your copy of the software, e.g. it can be stipulated that you don't attempt to disassemble it, or make copies and give them away to your friends, etc etc. In particular, you will lose your license to use the software if you break any of those terms and conditions. And inasmuch as an iPhone is just an expensive brick without the software, the reality is that Apple will always have very broad discretion in stipulating how you will use your iPhone. I don't like it any more than you do, but that's just the reality of the situation, and acknowledging the ugly truth is the very antithesis of a bad faith argument.