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I'm wondering if anyone could help me explain why this is a bad idea to others who might be sympathetic but don't really think about unlocking iphones. Like mos

I'm wondering if anyone could help me explain why this is a bad idea to others who might be sympathetic but don't really think about unlocking iphones. Like most people, I don't care about unlocked cell phones per se, it's just a consequence of a principle I very roughly characterize as "I want to do what I want with the things I own so long as there's no detrimental social effect." I've thought of the gas station metaphor: "Imagine owning a car and legally not being able to fill your tank with gasoline from any vendor you chose." But I'm not sure what works best. Please: I'm not characterizing the people I mean as dumb. On the contrary, they're smart people, who would otherwise see this as an obscure decision (indeed, how many people in the US actually unlock a phone?). I'm not asking how to dumb things down, I'm asking how to convey why decisions like this matter.

makmanalp 14y ago
The problem is this. I buy a phone from Verizon, go through and pay my 2 year contract. Legally, I am done and all paid for, except I can't switch out to T-mobile now (or at any time), if I wanted. I have to pay the price that Verizon mandates. I'm basically trapped unless I waste money for a new phone. So basically when gas prices go up, I can't go to a different gas station a mile away that I know to be 50c/gal cheaper. So they all make it go up to fuck me over.
pkteison 14y ago
I don't think this falls under your principle. I'm all about the doctrine of first sale, but this isn't a simple retail transaction where I fork over a sum of cash for a finished product and that's it. I paid for half a phone, my cell provider paid for the other half, and I have contracted to tie this phone to their service for two years in exchange for them shelling out that $300 up front. Once the two years are up they should be legally required to unlock it, but during the contract period it seems reasonable to keep me from taking full ownership of something that I don't yet fully own. "You can also pay full-price for a phone, not the discounted price that comes with a two-year service contract, to receive the device unlocked from the get-go." - if the full price phone was locked, your principle would certainly apply, but it isn't, so I don't think it does.
- baudehlo 14y ago
  I know that here in Canada, even if you buy an iPhone full price from anyone but Apple, it is locked to that vendor. Which seems ludicrous to me.
  - sareon 14y ago
    I thought the newest bill (related to technology, pirating, etc) here in Canada made it legal for Canadians to be allowed to unlock their phones and made it illegal for companies to tie one device to one company.
- linh 14y ago
  I don' think that's what the article is about. If you break the contract you'll have to pay a terminal fee anyway.
- mtinkerhess 14y ago
  But you do fully own the phone, even if you're on a contract. It's not like a mortgage or a car loan; the phone company doesn't have a lien on your phone. The penalty for breaking the contract isn't to give the phone back--it's to pay a termination fee.
  - dedward 14y ago
    This, specifically. If they want to deal with ownership do some kind of leasing agreement... otherwise, let's not have public enforcement propping up the business model.
- roc 14y ago
  Except that unlocking the phone doesn't free anyone from fulfilling their side of the original contract. So network interests in recapturing their subsidies don't even enter into it. If I buy an iPhone 5 from ATT and unlock it, even if I pay for a Straight Talk SIM and use that from time to time, I'm still on the hook to pay AT&T whatever monthly fee the contract obligates me to pay. The only reason AT&T would want me to not unlock my phone, is to ensure they have a captive market for further services that are not part of the contract. Be they usage overages, international roaming, etc. They'd like my $70/mo for a base smartphone package (with an absurd early termination fee to boot) and to not have to compete for any additional or international service I may need. Now you can certainly argue that that's a consideration people are willingly agreeing to when they agree to buy subsidized phones on contract. But the argument is that it's a consideration that ought to be explicitly spelled out in the contract terms, rather than enforced by an end-run through copyright law that most people don't know about and have no reason to believe holds any bearing over how they use a device they're paying for.
jbigelow76 14y ago
I like your gas station metaphor, I don't see any problem with it. It seems conceptually equivalent and the need to gas up your car is nearly universal in the US so it applies to any region or income demographic.
rmc 14y ago
Imagine you have a nice phone your bought and you've finished up the phone contract, and then you move. Your old phone company has terrible reception (or doesn't operate) where you've just moved. So you'll need to change phone companies. But your phone is locked. You are forced to buy a new phone, even if your old phone works fine. If you were legally allowed unlock it, then you wouldn't need to buy a new phone.
alberth 14y ago
The car metaphor does not work. As many farmers will tell you, it's illegal [1] to burn Red Farm Fuel Diesel in street vehicles, even though it works. [1] http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_071069 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.direct.gov.u... Update: link to more info on red diesel
- rz2k 14y ago
  You could also siphon your heating oil into your diesel car, with the problem that you are not paying for your share of road use. It also becomes an interesting conundrum with electric cars. In one sense their externalities in terms of environmental impact and geopolitical costs are generally much lower than conventional cars, but they are not paying for their use of public roads. Of course that also means that if you limit your consideration to the road only, someone driving a lightweight Ferrari that gets 13MPG is really helping out with the cost of roads, even if they are also needlessly contributing a lot of carbon to the atmosphere.
  - mahyarm 14y ago
    It would probably be offloaded into yearly registration taxes that are based on the amount of damage your car would create on the road. A heavy truck costs more than a lightweight miata or motorbike. For now, govt. wants to subsidize electric car's introduction to the market, so this tax deduction will probably stay for quite a while.
jasonkester 14y ago
You don't need a metaphor. You can use a real life situation: "I want to go to Europe" You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to use your phone there without paying ridiculous roaming and data charges. If you unlock your phone and hop a plane today, you can stop at any mobile phone shop at your destination airport, give them five euro, and they'll give you a new pre-paid SIM card with five euro worth of credit on it. That's enough to use your phone as much as you like for the duration of your two-week vacation. Top up with another fiver if you want a couple GB of data while you're at it. And you're done. Just remember to pop your old sim back in when you get home. Travelling the rest of the world is all about picking up cheap local SIM cards in every country you visit and enjoying cheap calls like a local. You're about to lose that.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  Is it illegal to unlock your phone in France?
  - adorable 14y ago
    No it's not. Carriers are required to help their clients whenever they want to unlock their phone.
  - saurik 14y ago
    If you are asking "why can't I just go to France and do it there", it is generally illegal [edit: my knowledge of this situation for end users--as opposed to those distributing tools--is apparently somewhat flawed; read the responses to this comment] to knowingly do something illegal in the US while traveling in another country so as to evade US law, so if you intend to return to the US you are still somewhat screwed. (Also, FWIW, many of the core people who do iPhone unlocking research are in the US, such as planetbeing and MuscleNerd.) [edit: The main reason I left this comment was that the other person responding didn't directly address that Spooky23's question was more about why the US citizen can't just wait to unlock their phone until they arrive in France, rather than doing it before the leave. Maybe someone else who sees this, maybe someone who has experience dealing with international travel, can comment on why that is or is not sufficient, given that the extra-territorial illegality argument that I was making is flawed. Is it really that simple? ;P]
rayiner 14y ago
> I've thought of the gas station metaphor: "Imagine owning a car and legally not being able to fill your tank with gasoline from any vendor you chose." That's misleading. It's more like: "Imagine if Shell sold you a car at 1/3 of retail and being legally not allowed to refill it at any gas station you choose." You're leaving an important part of the equation out by ignoring the subsidy, and potentially making people think it's illegal to move phones you buy unlocked for full price between carriers. In my experience, ordinary people respond quite strongly to the idea that if I'm they're getting a discount on something, there might be strings attached. They don't see anything wrong with it generally.
- jug6ernaut 14y ago
  As stated out by another user this not an accurate metaphor. With yours Shell loses out on potential revenue if you go to another gas station. To buy a subsided phone it is in contract that you must stay with that said company for a period of time. If you break that contract you have to pay full price for that phone. Unlocking a phone does not in anyway alleviate you from your obligation to abide by that contract and pay your bill. Unlocked or not unlocked you still have to pay.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    You're making unwarranted assumptions about AT&T's revenue model. Who says staying on the contract for two years is the entirety of the benefit AT&T bargained for? They also benefit from the control over the secondary and overseas market that locking the phones gives them. Also, you're ignoring the fact that people don't necessarily pay what they owe on contract. AT&T has to deal with this statistically. Some percentage of people will take the discount and not pay the termination fee. It costs money to go after those people and they take a big haircut selling the debt to a collections agency. Maybe they found that locking the phones is a cheaper way of enforcing the contract because most people can't figure out how to get past the lock. I'm not arguing that unlocking your phone should be a violation of the DMCA. But it's also unfair to leave out the fact that you didn't buy an unlocked phone--you bought, at a huge discount, a locked phone tied to a contract.
gtr32x 14y ago
There are many people that need to travel around all the time. I am a University of Waterloo student and we have a coop/intern program that allows us to travel between US and Canada all the time if we could find a job in the States. Every four month we will be going back and forth between Canada and US. It is a major PIA that we cannot use the phone between the two countries. Right now I am on contract under Fido in Canada and I am currently in Seattle. I am actually still paying the fees for my Fido account in Canada in order to keep my discounted contract plan. However my phone is now totally useless in the States. The only official way of unlocking is to pay Fido a premium for canceling the plan. I mean if I'm already paying you guys money while I am out of country can't I just have it unlocked? What difference does it make that I unlock now vs unlocking it when my contract is due? Even if I unlock my phone, I will still be on contract which means I must pay the fees for the contract until it ends. If I then decide to switch carrier after unlocking, you can still charge me the same fee for cancelling the plan. It simply makes no sense and it's just screwing around with people like us that need to go out of country all the time.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Maybe fido has different policies, but typically if your phone has the right radios, your carrier will let you "roam", and they charge you for the privilege. This means you should get service in the states, it just costs a lot of money.
  - gtr32x 14y ago
    I am able to roam in the States, and it's connected to At&t right now. Like you said though, the roaming charges are ridiculous, it basically renders the cellphone unusable in accordance to my normal browsing habits.
    - alanctgardner2 14y ago
      If it has the right radios, there are about a million sites online that will sell you an unlock code for $20-40 depending on model. They seem a bit sketchy, but I've never been ripped off on 4 different sites.
wpietri 14y ago
I look at it from a free-markets perspective. I'm a big fan, you see. Monopoly-inclined companies hate free markets, because they'd rather not compete fairly. They tend to think of customers not as respected partners, but as their property. We are cows that they are entitled to milk. In this case they are taking advantage of information asymmetries, a size asymmetry, and human cognitive biases to reduce the freedom in the marketplace. It's bullshit, but very profitable bullshit. Profitable enough that they could buy the laws they wanted.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
noonespecial 14y ago
Locked phones go to landfills. Unlocked ones keep doing good when you donate or sell them. You don't want to put all of those dangerous chemicals in the ground next to your drinking water source because of some silly "lobbyist-law" do you?
wissler 14y ago
The reason it's difficult is that in principle, there's nothing wrong per se with a company giving you something with terms like this. The problem is that our political environment is corrupt and these big businesses are operating to large degree on what can only be called privilege -- and making this case is very very hard, most people live inside something that might be called "The Matrix."
johnward 14y ago
If you own the devices you should do as you please. This would be like someone telling you that you can ONLY use a certain brand on brake pads on your car or only stop at an Exxon brand gas station.
acchow 14y ago
I've been told before that most Americans have never been outside the country. I never realized "phone unlocking" would be a perspective that would be affected by this isolationism.

makmanalp 14y ago

The problem is this. I buy a phone from Verizon, go through and pay my 2 year contract. Legally, I am done and all paid for, except I can't switch out to T-mobile now (or at any time), if I wanted. I have to pay the price that Verizon mandates. I'm basically trapped unless I waste money for a new phone. So basically when gas prices go up, I can't go to a different gas station a mile away that I know to be 50c/gal cheaper. So they all make it go up to fuck me over.

pkteison 14y ago

I don't think this falls under your principle. I'm all about the doctrine of first sale, but this isn't a simple retail transaction where I fork over a sum of cash for a finished product and that's it. I paid for half a phone, my cell provider paid for the other half, and I have contracted to tie this phone to their service for two years in exchange for them shelling out that $300 up front. Once the two years are up they should be legally required to unlock it, but during the contract period it seems reasonable to keep me from taking full ownership of something that I don't yet fully own. "You can also pay full-price for a phone, not the discounted price that comes with a two-year service contract, to receive the device unlocked from the get-go." - if the full price phone was locked, your principle would certainly apply, but it isn't, so I don't think it does.

baudehlo 14y ago
I know that here in Canada, even if you buy an iPhone full price from anyone but Apple, it is locked to that vendor. Which seems ludicrous to me.
- sareon 14y ago
  I thought the newest bill (related to technology, pirating, etc) here in Canada made it legal for Canadians to be allowed to unlock their phones and made it illegal for companies to tie one device to one company.
linh 14y ago
I don' think that's what the article is about. If you break the contract you'll have to pay a terminal fee anyway.
mtinkerhess 14y ago
But you do fully own the phone, even if you're on a contract. It's not like a mortgage or a car loan; the phone company doesn't have a lien on your phone. The penalty for breaking the contract isn't to give the phone back--it's to pay a termination fee.
- dedward 14y ago
  This, specifically. If they want to deal with ownership do some kind of leasing agreement... otherwise, let's not have public enforcement propping up the business model.
roc 14y ago
Except that unlocking the phone doesn't free anyone from fulfilling their side of the original contract. So network interests in recapturing their subsidies don't even enter into it. If I buy an iPhone 5 from ATT and unlock it, even if I pay for a Straight Talk SIM and use that from time to time, I'm still on the hook to pay AT&T whatever monthly fee the contract obligates me to pay. The only reason AT&T would want me to not unlock my phone, is to ensure they have a captive market for further services that are not part of the contract. Be they usage overages, international roaming, etc. They'd like my $70/mo for a base smartphone package (with an absurd early termination fee to boot) and to not have to compete for any additional or international service I may need. Now you can certainly argue that that's a consideration people are willingly agreeing to when they agree to buy subsidized phones on contract. But the argument is that it's a consideration that ought to be explicitly spelled out in the contract terms, rather than enforced by an end-run through copyright law that most people don't know about and have no reason to believe holds any bearing over how they use a device they're paying for.

jbigelow76 14y ago

I like your gas station metaphor, I don't see any problem with it. It seems conceptually equivalent and the need to gas up your car is nearly universal in the US so it applies to any region or income demographic.

rmc 14y ago

Imagine you have a nice phone your bought and you've finished up the phone contract, and then you move. Your old phone company has terrible reception (or doesn't operate) where you've just moved. So you'll need to change phone companies. But your phone is locked. You are forced to buy a new phone, even if your old phone works fine. If you were legally allowed unlock it, then you wouldn't need to buy a new phone.

alberth 14y ago

The car metaphor does not work. As many farmers will tell you, it's illegal [1] to burn Red Farm Fuel Diesel in street vehicles, even though it works. [1] http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_071069 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/www.direct.gov.u... Update: link to more info on red diesel

rz2k 14y ago
You could also siphon your heating oil into your diesel car, with the problem that you are not paying for your share of road use. It also becomes an interesting conundrum with electric cars. In one sense their externalities in terms of environmental impact and geopolitical costs are generally much lower than conventional cars, but they are not paying for their use of public roads. Of course that also means that if you limit your consideration to the road only, someone driving a lightweight Ferrari that gets 13MPG is really helping out with the cost of roads, even if they are also needlessly contributing a lot of carbon to the atmosphere.
- mahyarm 14y ago
  It would probably be offloaded into yearly registration taxes that are based on the amount of damage your car would create on the road. A heavy truck costs more than a lightweight miata or motorbike. For now, govt. wants to subsidize electric car's introduction to the market, so this tax deduction will probably stay for quite a while.

jasonkester 14y ago

You don't need a metaphor. You can use a real life situation: "I want to go to Europe" You can't do that next week. Well, you can, but you won't be able to use your phone there without paying ridiculous roaming and data charges. If you unlock your phone and hop a plane today, you can stop at any mobile phone shop at your destination airport, give them five euro, and they'll give you a new pre-paid SIM card with five euro worth of credit on it. That's enough to use your phone as much as you like for the duration of your two-week vacation. Top up with another fiver if you want a couple GB of data while you're at it. And you're done. Just remember to pop your old sim back in when you get home. Travelling the rest of the world is all about picking up cheap local SIM cards in every country you visit and enjoying cheap calls like a local. You're about to lose that.

Spooky23 14y ago
Is it illegal to unlock your phone in France?
- adorable 14y ago
  No it's not. Carriers are required to help their clients whenever they want to unlock their phone.
- saurik 14y ago
  If you are asking "why can't I just go to France and do it there", it is generally illegal [edit: my knowledge of this situation for end users--as opposed to those distributing tools--is apparently somewhat flawed; read the responses to this comment] to knowingly do something illegal in the US while traveling in another country so as to evade US law, so if you intend to return to the US you are still somewhat screwed. (Also, FWIW, many of the core people who do iPhone unlocking research are in the US, such as planetbeing and MuscleNerd.) [edit: The main reason I left this comment was that the other person responding didn't directly address that Spooky23's question was more about why the US citizen can't just wait to unlock their phone until they arrive in France, rather than doing it before the leave. Maybe someone else who sees this, maybe someone who has experience dealing with international travel, can comment on why that is or is not sufficient, given that the extra-territorial illegality argument that I was making is flawed. Is it really that simple? ;P]

rayiner 14y ago

> I've thought of the gas station metaphor: "Imagine owning a car and legally not being able to fill your tank with gasoline from any vendor you chose." That's misleading. It's more like: "Imagine if Shell sold you a car at 1/3 of retail and being legally not allowed to refill it at any gas station you choose." You're leaving an important part of the equation out by ignoring the subsidy, and potentially making people think it's illegal to move phones you buy unlocked for full price between carriers. In my experience, ordinary people respond quite strongly to the idea that if I'm they're getting a discount on something, there might be strings attached. They don't see anything wrong with it generally.

jug6ernaut 14y ago
As stated out by another user this not an accurate metaphor. With yours Shell loses out on potential revenue if you go to another gas station. To buy a subsided phone it is in contract that you must stay with that said company for a period of time. If you break that contract you have to pay full price for that phone. Unlocking a phone does not in anyway alleviate you from your obligation to abide by that contract and pay your bill. Unlocked or not unlocked you still have to pay.
- rayiner 14y ago
  You're making unwarranted assumptions about AT&T's revenue model. Who says staying on the contract for two years is the entirety of the benefit AT&T bargained for? They also benefit from the control over the secondary and overseas market that locking the phones gives them. Also, you're ignoring the fact that people don't necessarily pay what they owe on contract. AT&T has to deal with this statistically. Some percentage of people will take the discount and not pay the termination fee. It costs money to go after those people and they take a big haircut selling the debt to a collections agency. Maybe they found that locking the phones is a cheaper way of enforcing the contract because most people can't figure out how to get past the lock. I'm not arguing that unlocking your phone should be a violation of the DMCA. But it's also unfair to leave out the fact that you didn't buy an unlocked phone--you bought, at a huge discount, a locked phone tied to a contract.

gtr32x 14y ago

There are many people that need to travel around all the time. I am a University of Waterloo student and we have a coop/intern program that allows us to travel between US and Canada all the time if we could find a job in the States. Every four month we will be going back and forth between Canada and US. It is a major PIA that we cannot use the phone between the two countries. Right now I am on contract under Fido in Canada and I am currently in Seattle. I am actually still paying the fees for my Fido account in Canada in order to keep my discounted contract plan. However my phone is now totally useless in the States. The only official way of unlocking is to pay Fido a premium for canceling the plan. I mean if I'm already paying you guys money while I am out of country can't I just have it unlocked? What difference does it make that I unlock now vs unlocking it when my contract is due? Even if I unlock my phone, I will still be on contract which means I must pay the fees for the contract until it ends. If I then decide to switch carrier after unlocking, you can still charge me the same fee for cancelling the plan. It simply makes no sense and it's just screwing around with people like us that need to go out of country all the time.

alanctgardner2 14y ago
Maybe fido has different policies, but typically if your phone has the right radios, your carrier will let you "roam", and they charge you for the privilege. This means you should get service in the states, it just costs a lot of money.
- gtr32x 14y ago
  I am able to roam in the States, and it's connected to At&t right now. Like you said though, the roaming charges are ridiculous, it basically renders the cellphone unusable in accordance to my normal browsing habits.
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    If it has the right radios, there are about a million sites online that will sell you an unlock code for $20-40 depending on model. They seem a bit sketchy, but I've never been ripped off on 4 different sites.

wpietri 14y ago

I look at it from a free-markets perspective. I'm a big fan, you see. Monopoly-inclined companies hate free markets, because they'd rather not compete fairly. They tend to think of customers not as respected partners, but as their property. We are cows that they are entitled to milk. In this case they are taking advantage of information asymmetries, a size asymmetry, and human cognitive biases to reduce the freedom in the marketplace. It's bullshit, but very profitable bullshit. Profitable enough that they could buy the laws they wanted.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

noonespecial 14y ago

Locked phones go to landfills. Unlocked ones keep doing good when you donate or sell them. You don't want to put all of those dangerous chemicals in the ground next to your drinking water source because of some silly "lobbyist-law" do you?

wissler 14y ago

The reason it's difficult is that in principle, there's nothing wrong per se with a company giving you something with terms like this. The problem is that our political environment is corrupt and these big businesses are operating to large degree on what can only be called privilege -- and making this case is very very hard, most people live inside something that might be called "The Matrix."

johnward 14y ago

If you own the devices you should do as you please. This would be like someone telling you that you can ONLY use a certain brand on brake pads on your car or only stop at an Exxon brand gas station.

acchow 14y ago

I've been told before that most Americans have never been outside the country. I never realized "phone unlocking" would be a perspective that would be affected by this isolationism.