[SideburnsOfDoom]

> Imagine it's 1940 or 1950 and someone starts asking "Who is going to own the computers?"

An iPhone is a good example of a computer. Did you see this paragraph:

"I paid for my iPhone in full, but Apple owns the software that runs on it, the patents on the hardware inside it, and the exclusive right to the marketplace of applications for it. If I want to participate in their marketplace, Apple can arbitrarily reject my application, extract whatever cut of my sales they see fit, and change the terms whenever they like."

[gress]

This seems like a moot compliant. You can always buy a rootable android phone, or a Firefox phone.

This is like complaining that your newspaper already has ink on it stating someone else's opinion. If you want it to be blank, buy a pad from an art store.

[jjoonathan]

> You can always buy a rootable android phone, or a Firefox phone.

The relevant party is not "you," it's the typical consumer. They can't just buy a rootable phone and root it because they don't know what it would gain them. The opportunity to exploit this (very understandable and reasonable) gap in their knowledge falls, as it always seems to, with the people who own the means of production.

> This is like complaining that your newspaper already has ink on it stating someone else's opinion.

No, it's like saying that the fact that Rupert Murdoch has veto power over all stories with a national audience might have a negative impact on political discourse.

> If you want it to be blank, buy a pad from an art store.

Have you not heard of the concept "barrier to entry" or are you being disingenuous?

[gress]

Ah, so this has nothing to do with owning your own phone, and everything to do with being given access to an audience.

It seems to me that I'm not the one who's being disingenuous.

[jjoonathan]

That's exactly what I meant to say -- I don't understand what you think is disingenuous about my post.

Should I expect everyone to be handed an audience on a silver platter? No, that's silly. What I do wish for is that competition is siloed so that leverage in one industry can't be used to arbitrarily dominate another. An actual implementation of such anti-trust policy might be a ban on discriminating against alternative app-stores. This is a very pro-market, pro-competition stance. It's not, as you seem to believe, some form of audience-communism (how would that even work)?

[gress]

The original point being debated is the idea that you don't 'own your own phone', and the answer is that nobody is preventing you from owning your own phone, and such phones are available, but we also have the option to choose a phone where someone else controls the software if we think that gives us a better experience.

What you are proposing is government intervention to take that right away from people - to limit their choices.

We currently have multiple different options with different levels of corporate control, and the most popular operating system currently allows alternative app stores to be installed.

Your position is to limit the allowable contracts between both consumers and device makers and is strictly anti-market. Since the proposed remedy is already enjoyed by the majority of consumers, there is absolutely no justification for such a position.

[mcguire]

...and sell the applications you write to whom? And how?

[gress]

Whoever else values an open device, and through your own store, just like the way most desktop software is sold.