[Silhouette]

Given that

(a) no smartphone exists that is a perfect fit for my ideal requirements

and

(b) having some smartphone is now almost essential to function normally within society

I would say yes, I absolutely do want the government to intervene. Market competition is obviously not doing the job, and none of us individually is strong enough to force the issue with the suppliers. That is exactly the situation where regulatory intervention is appropriate to protect the little guy from the power of the big guy.

[scarface74]

Sure let the same idiots who put on the dog and pony show with tech CEOs design the SilhouettePhone just for you....

[Apocryphon]

That's real snazzy name for a smartphone. When can I preorder it?

[chrisseaton]

> I absolutely do want the government to intervene

Well I don't know what to say apart from this is incredibly selfish.

You can't find a product suited to your particular esoteric requirements so you want the government to force someone else to perform labour to build the product you want.

Can you see how wacky that sounds when you write it out like that?

[Silhouette]

By that argument, all consumer protection laws should be abolished. Clearly I don't agree with that position.

I don't think it's selfish to argue that government should protect the little guy from being exploited by the big guy who has much greater power, for each of the numerous little guys affected by a situation. Indeed, that is arguably one of the most important functions of any government.

I would have less of a problem with this if we were discussing some luxury item that people could easily do without. However, the reality is that many organisations -- including government entities at various scales in my country as well as other essential services -- now effectively require the use of certain technologies in order to function as a normal member of society. It is therefore reasonable to ensure that the technologies available are provided on an acceptable basis.

If a supplier doesn't want to play by those rules, they're not forced to perform any labour for me or anyone else here. They're perfectly entitled to simply exit the market instead.

[chrisseaton]

> However, the reality is that many organisations -- including government entities at various scales in my country as well as other essential services -- now effectively require the use of certain technologies in order to function as a normal member of society.

But you can already access these Government services - the apps already work, right? You don't need a third-party-app-store to use them?

So that isn't a reason to change anything.

You want the iPhone to be changed so you can do other things with the iPhone, unrelated to these Government services.

[Silhouette]

You keep quoting a partial comment and then trying to shift the discussion away from the fundamental point.

The fundamental point is still that, for practical purposes, many people now have to have a smartphone. There are, for practical purposes, two types of smartphone available. If neither of those meets some reasonable conditions that many people would prefer to have -- for example, retaining control of your own device and data -- then this implies a lack of effective competition in the marketplace. Government regulation is the solution to that problem.

Arguing that people don't have to buy the product isn't helpful. Many people are effectively forced into buying one product or the other.

Arguing that people don't have to buy the Apple product isn't helpful. Buying an Android one instead is worse in other respects.

[chrisseaton]

> You keep quoting a partial comment and then trying to shift the discussion away from the fundamental point.

When you try to give a concrete example I show how that concrete example doesn't make any sense to me.

If the fundamental point doesn't translate to any concrete situations then it's a dud.

> neither of those meets some reasonable conditions that many people would prefer to have -- for example, retaining control of your own device and data

But I don't think these are a reasonable conditions.

And I don't think many people want them - I think the number is probably absolutely tiny.

I think using legislation to force Apple to accomodate the unreasonable and abstract preferences of a tiny number of people from a group that isn't specially protected is morally unjust.

But I won't keep arguing it further as I think we probably just have different morals.

[Silhouette]

But I don't think these are a reasonable conditions.

So we can see. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be in the interests of owners of Apple devices, or that Apple shouldn't be prevented from exploiting its dominant position to restrict the market to the detriment of those owners.

I wonder whether you'd be OK with an electricity supplier saying you're only allowed to plug in equipment they have approved and they can change the rules or revoke approvals any time they like. If you don't like it, you can go to the other electricity supplier, who will give you their list of acceptable equipment instead. If you want to use equipment from both lists, don't worry, just buy two houses. And of course no-one makes any equipment that isn't on either list, because there is no possibility you'd ever want to power anything that wasn't approved by at least one electricity supplier.

Or you can buy Car A that goes only to one set of locations, or Car B that goes only to another set. Other locations might be happy to welcome you, but even if they build the roads to reach them, your car will artificially prevent you from driving that way.

[scarface74]

By definition the iPhone where the lowest cost one is $100 more than the average selling cost of all Androids is a luxury item....