[notpushkin]

Yeah, I mean, I understand them being charged for the failed trade-in. Their credit card was charged, so Apple supposedly got the money (from Goldman Sachs). Why did they still block his account (owned by Apple) when he failed to pay his credit card bill (owed to Goldman Sachs)?

[bastawhiz]

He didn't pay for the device.

The linkage between the card and the account doesn't actually seem important here. They locked the account that the unpaid iPhone was set up with. Why would Apple continue to provide service to an account that was being used by a device that was effectively partially stolen from them?

[josephcsible]

If you buy a Corolla, pay it off, then a few years later buy a Camry too, and you default on its loan, should they be allowed to remotely disable both of your cars?

[bastawhiz]

They didn't disable his phone, they disabled the services that ran on their servers. Should you still get updates and navigation in both of your cars if you effectively steal the car? I can't think of a case where that would be reasonable.

Moreover, cars are much more easily repossessed than phones and laptops.

[josephcsible]

> They didn't disable his phone, they disabled the services that ran on their servers. Should you still get updates and navigation in both of your cars if you effectively steal the car? I can't think of a case where that would be reasonable.

Society has decided that defaulting on a car loan is not equivalent to stealing a car. This is why you can still go to jail for the latter even though debtor's prisons were abolished.

> Moreover, cars are much more easily repossessed than phones and laptops.

Sure, let's go that route instead. Should they be able to repossess your paid-off Corolla because you defaulted on payments for your Camry?

[bastawhiz]

[flagged]

[josephcsible]

> services he expects Apple to provide after he doesn't pay them for their hardware

The problem is that Apple didn't just disable these services on the device he didn't pay for. They disabled them even on the devices he did pay for.

> Should your Corolla's cloud based gps routing stop working when you break your contract with Toyota over your Camry? Arguably yes. The car didn't default on the loan, you did. You broke your contract, why would you expect the other party to continue allowing you to be their customer?

Because the contract says what happens if you default, and that isn't one of the things it says.

[notpushkin]

This is all good, but you’re still ignoring the fact that they don’t owe Apple anything. The credit card is run by Goldman Sachs, not Apple.

[pqtyw]

Presumably same would apply to all other devices that user might have had? Disabling those seems quite unreasonable..

[bastawhiz]

They didn't disable the devices, they disabled the connected services.