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Comment by mmaunder | Hacker News Reader

"If I buy you a house and put the title in your name, but I mark some of the doors 'Employees Only', then you're not allowed to open those doors, even though it's your house. Because it's really my house, even though I gave it to you to live in."

Love it!

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This actually reminded me of Apple...

The difference between phones, and all other products, is that phones don't work unless you're currently in a business relationship with some telecom or another. It's a bit more like selling someone a nuclear reactor—they're beholden to your rules as long as they have no other source of fissile materials.

In 15 minutes, with 15 euros, I could be out the door and have a new 'business relationship' with a different telecom provider. It's not that big a deal: you just pop in a new sim card.

Sure, in the US people have all these locked up phones, but that's the price you pay for getting subsidized hardware.

Not to mention the higher rates, thanks to virtually zero regulation of the telcos here in the US.

Higher rate my foot. Cell phones in Switzerland and Germany are crazy expensive. It costs people like 0.20 cents to call someone with a phone, and I pay like 0.25 cents or something. When I used to have a phone in Germany, I used to spend upwards of 90 euros a month calling like I was used to in the states, where I basically have as much calling as I need for $50 (including tax and all that sneaky bullshit). Cell phones in europe are a little cheaper if you don't talk much, but if you really want to use it as a primary phone, they are insane expensive. Thats why everybody texts like crazy here, but even texts are expensive.

How much do you call to get your bill up to 90 euros?

In Finland, 3000 minutes of talk time and 3000 text messages costs about 38 € on a major operator. You can often get a switcher discount to bring the price further down.

Is that 0.25 cents (as written) or 25 cents ?

He probably meant 0.25 hectacents :)

I hate it when I do that! Obviously 25 cents. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-...

Indeed, that is the elephant in the corner of the room. One might almost say the typical consumer doesn't understand the difference between free and in speech and as in beer...

Having worked on both telephones and nuclear reactors, I can say for sure they have nothing in common.

They're both the subject of vast public ignorance in regard to the hazards. :D

On one hand clever, on the other hand, misjudging the probabilities of personal danger is subject to 2 or 3 common cognitive biases, so the public everywhere always has been ignorant of the true hazards.

The both produce harmful radiation!

That is not even wrong. Look up non-ionising radiation. Either that, or great troll.

Can't we have one conversation on HN that doesn't turn into an Apple / iPhone conversation...

This article was about something totally unrelated.

What about:

"I worked hard to deprecate that code that I worked hard to create so I could deprecate some other code that I also worked hard on,"

Why would you want to work to be features that are superseded and should be avoided?

Yeah, it's fine for our software but not their music

Is open source music a particularly big phenomenon?

Open-source is irrelevant here. It's (1) "I own this copy of music/software and can do anything I wish with it" vs (2) "I licensed this copy of music/software from you on the terms we have agreed on, and I will adhere to these terms".

Both music and software are usually licensed (2), but people often disrespect music license thinking they are entitled to more rights for some reason.

It's getting there. Check out http://ccmixter.org/ .

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