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by stale2002 1850 days ago
> If they would band together, why not just make a new phone?

Because it is much easier to write jailbreaking software, than it is to build an entirely new phone.

> since apple could release a new firmware to block your OS

People have been jailbreaking phones for years. That is always the game of cat and mouse. And people have continue to get around it, even though they don't have large amount of resources, like big companies would.

But, furthermore, if there is a large enough userbase, that is jailbreaking their phone, then it would cause Apple a large amount of economic damage, if they decide to screw over this critical mass of users.

If 30% of Apple's users, would get their phone bricked after an Apple update, then Apple would probably be cautious about doing that.

But I guess it is hypothetically possible that Apple would be willing to brick 30% of their customers phones (if that was the critical mass). That would certainly hurt their customer friendly image though, and it would cause Apple billions of dollars in damages.

> but the market solution would be for people

Putting lots of resources into jailbreaking phones, and convincing a lot of users to do it, such that it would cause Apple a lot of damage, if they stopped it, is also a free market solution.

That is a free market solution that is much easier to do, than building a new phone.

1 comments

As long as it doesn’t break the contract you signed when buying the device, go for it.
> As long as it doesn’t break the contract

The contract that would be enforced by aggressive government regulation?

Yeah no. I thought you did not like government regulation, and supported people's ability to do what they want with things that they own? And in this case, such a contract, is enforced by government regulation, and we should work to invalidate it, if it prevents people from doing what they want with the phone that they bought.

Thats the point. I support the free market solution here, and apparently you want to use the government, to take away people's ability to do what they want, with their own phone, if you think that such a contract should prevent this.

I want to get rid of Apple's ability to use the government, to stop people from doing what they want with their own phone. The government regulations that prevent people from doing this is the problem.

I certainly support contract law. What I don’t want is coercion. They make a device, offer it to you with a contract, and you can say yes or no.

You make a recommendation for how they run their platform, they can say yes or no. You can go or you can stay.

It’s that simple.

But I think we’ve run this well dry.

> offer it to you with a contract

If I walk in to Best Buy and get an iPhone, I'm not signing any contract with Apple. All I'm agreeing to is "I give Best Buy money, and Best Buy gives me this physical product." The reason we're upset with Apple is that they're imposing terms on us as if we signed a contract with them, but we didn't.

Right. Then you boot it up and have to agree to a bunch of stuff to use iOS. You can bail at that point and not use the device. Or you can know that you’ll have to agree to it later, and that the device is quite difficult to put another OS on, and just not purchase it. Get a librephone or Android or …

You may say that you bought the phone and so you can do with it what you want —- ok. Hack/root it to run another OS. It’s your device in that sense. But they are under no obligation (nor should be forced to be) to make it easy.

I agree with you that I wish they would make it easy, but alas. Buy a librephone.

Ok, but then don't go around pretending like you are someone who opposes government intervention.

Instead, it is other people, who want to get the government out of our phones, and not have the coercive, government force, under threat of violence, preventing us from doing things with phones that we purchased.

If you want to say that you support the government, using force and coercion, and government intervention, into people's lives, fine. But that is your position. And it is extremely anti-free market.

But, if your position, is that you support this government coercion, then I am not sure why you would get upset about other forms for laws, and government coercion, given that you want the government to forcibly prevent other people from doing things with phones.

Because you absolutely support government coercion, that would be government force on people, who are doing things with phones that they own.