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Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?

To try another example besides Apple iPhone, consider the $35000 Prima Cinema movie server to play 1st run movies at home on day of release: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22prima+cinema%22&source=ln...

In many iPhone debates, we throw around phrases such as, "unlike a game console, it's a general computer" and "I own the device so I should be able to put any software I want on it".

Understandable sentiments. So the question is, should consumers be able to knowingly buy restricted hardware such as Prima Cinema? They pay $35000 and own the computer but they know they can't sideload their own movies. They know can't pick another "movie store", or watch Youtube/Netflix on it, etc. The hardware has anti-tampering sensors so that it bricks itself if the owner tries to open it. The hardware is a "general pc". It runs Wind River Linux. I think the cpu is x86 but it might be ARM or something else.

You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't. If a buyer wants to have 1st run movies at home, all those restrictions in place is they only way to get it. It's more restrictive than iPhone in that sense.

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Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except perhaps lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies that sell products that build off of jailbroken products should be 100% legal. Edge case products like Prima Cinema can simply lease the hardware with restrictions on how can be used under the terms of the lease. If Apple feels so strongly about locking down their platform, they can adjust their business model and lease their hardware to customers. However, companies should not be able to legally "sell" products that transfer ownership if they are going to include "strings" restricting the usage of the product.

>Nope. If a person "owns" a piece of hardware, it should be legal to jailbreak it without any consequences (except perhaps lack of support for 3rd party software) and companies that sell products that build off of jailbroken products should be 100% legal.

All of those things are true today.

The question was: >Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

And the answer to that is: obviously it should be, if you care about competition and innovation. The only people that disagree with this are the tech people who have had problems with Apple's business on ideological grounds for decades (people like Richard Stallman and saurik).

But outside that one particularly small constituency, there's no good public policy reason to actually make it illegal, and plenty of reasons not to.

Correct. It's been perfectly legal since 2010.

>The U.S. Librarian of Congress ruled on Monday that consumers who circumvent digital protections on smartphones to install unapproved applications—a practice often colloquially known as “jailbreaking”—for noninfringing reasons should be exempted from prosecution under the anti-circumvention section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

https://www.macworld.com/article/1152935/jailbreak_exemption...

That exception is for Smart Phones, and I think has expired even

This would not apply to something like Prima Cimea, nor a John Deere Tractor, or 1000's of other things.

Also the wording of the exception bu LoC was very open to interpretation and not as powerful as people commonly think

Yes, the "consumers" should be exempted, not anyone selling solutions to do this or just giving them up for free. Which essentially means that unless you are an uber hacker that does this for their iPhones, nobody else can do it. It's pretty pointless in practice.

You don't have to be any sort of hacker. A jailbreaking app like Checkra1n will step you through the process.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/11/10/how-to-jailbreak-wi...

If you can figure it out, you can jailbreak it; but there is no reason why jailbreaking a device is inherently possible: jailbreaks for iOS are happening later and later in the boot cycle and so are more and more limited, and we have had a single bootrom exploit in like a decade. If you want to be able to jailbreak a device it must be illegal to lock it down like that, not merely legal for someone to figure out how to maybe break the lock after you build it.

>If you want to be able to jailbreak a device it must be illegal to lock it down like that

I'm not sure why you're putting this in terms of iOS, since many Android devices also ship with a locked bootloader.

>there is no reason why jailbreaking a device is inherently possible

Any iDevice with an A11 or earlier has an unpatchable bootloader flaw that absolutely makes it inherently jailbreakable. Apple cannot prevent you from jailbreaking those devices, nor can it patch the flaw with a future version of the OS.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/devel...

At the beginning you said nope but based on your explanation I feel like you meant to say yep... e.g. yes, we should make it illegal.

Ahh, I see the problem - thanks Osiris - there are 2 questions, each of them opposite.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

and

> Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?

Good thing I'm not a lawyer!

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

His answer: Nope.

> Yes, it's legal today but should we make it illegal?

IMO, yes. We make it illegal for someone to come into your home and take your stuff, which ends up with you losing control over it (you have no more access to your stuff), so it also makes sense to make it illegal for someone to decide to not allow you install or modify the stuff you have (again taking control away from you).

The way most of these platforms run is like buying something but by doing so you also give an implicit permission for the seller to come in your house and modify or even forbid you from using what you bought if they do not like what you are doing with it.

Imagine if you bought an oven and you could only bake specific recipes that the over manufacturer allowed. And when you complained you had others telling you "just buy another oven" (until all oven manufacturers were into the game because it made them more money - especially those who are also into selling ingredients - and you had no other options, except perhaps a few cheap models that had a tendency to explode every now and then and their only usefulness is to be used as skapegoats whenever "monopoly" is brought up).

And yes, i know the above comparisons aren't 100% fitting, software isn't a physical product, it is special, but it still feels very wrong to buy a device (be it a phone, gaming console, TV or whatever) and have no control over what you can install or even -in some cases- do with it.

> We make it illegal for someone to come into your home and take your stuff

It's not illegal however if you signed a contract to that effect, which is what you did when you started using the platform.

A better analogy is that you're renting some furniture and the furniture is found to be unsafe. The company can come and take it away, either replacing it with something else or refunding you.

In the software world nobody but the creators or IP holders of the software actually owns the software. They just provide you the license to use it.

It's illegal in many countries to modify the software so if you had a closed-source word processing application it would be illegal to mod it or to use it as part of a data transformation pipeline. You can only use it for the purposes stated when you bought it.

If there was a way to limit your oven to bake recipes the manufacturer allowed or to use specific approved ingredients, and would come with some sort of value-add to make consumers ignore that as a problem, I'm sure someone would actually do this.

(please note that I am stating facts as I see them and not necessarily agreeing with the state of affairs)

The question above was about if something should be made illegal, not what the current state of affairs is.

Also i'm not arguing about who owns the software, i never asked for ownership of the software, i ask for being able to be in control of the software that runs in the hardware i do actually own. This does not require me owning the OS that runs in my hardware.

And yes, i'm sure someone would do the oven stuff if it was possible and making that illegal would also be something that would be needed.

>It's not illegal however if you signed a contract to that effect, which is what you did when you started using the platform.

Contracts are not above the law. Or: you can't contradict laws with your contract.

Sure you can. Just look at arbitration. It’s not right, but it’s incorrect to say that a contact can’t remove your rights.

Only to the extent that the law permits arbitration clauses.

If it was clearly stated before I bought the oven that it was limited to a certain number of recipes that the manufacturer provided, I actually don’t see the problem. You knew from the start what you were paying for.

And for your complaint that all the other ovens are crap and explode. Shouldn’t you take that up with the people making those ovens, not the one that made the locked oven? Maybe it’s very very hard to make ovens that don’t explode from time to time when people can cook whatever they want in them?

If someone came after you paid them and said, btw, you can’t make muffins in this oven, then I think it’s fair to be upset. But in the current situation, no.

From a legal perspective, you have complete control over what you do with it. You just don’t control what “it” is in the first place.

The part of that argument I have trouble with is the “until all oven manufacturer were into the game” part. Do you have an example where an entire class of computer hardware became impossible to buy without firmware restrictions? This alarm bell has been sounded as “The War on General Purpose Computing” for over a decade for different pieces of hardware (laptops, desktops, routers, phones, etc.) but it still hasn’t really trended negatively (phones and routers in particular have many more unlocked options today that they did in the early 2000s), let alone come close to extinction for any of them. The broadest category you could make a case for is specifically x86 processors, but only the IME/PSP/SMM components.

I think the reality is there just isn’t as much business incentive to do these kind of things to computing devices as much as people imagine, and instead the arguments tend to paint the would-be oppressors as cartoon villains that want to remove these abilities from the world just because. Android phones that can root or at least sideload have been numerous forever; somehow nobody has bothered to create a halfway serious Google Play Store competitor anyway. Why would every business move to quash something which ultimately isn’t a universal threat? What Epic wants isn’t sideloading or rooting their way on to iPhones, they want Apple themselves to have to let users install Epic’s store through normal channels.

Game consoles, right? Back in the day things like the Commodore were often sold as game systems and computers (the NES wasn’t but you could still run unlicensed software). Nowadays, good luck running something on your PS4/Switch that the company didn’t approve (unless you have a hackable switch I guess, but that’s extremely fiddly).

That’s a good point, but the incentives there make more sense: game piracy has been a huge issue for publishers on every gaming platform (PC included) that didn’t put serious hardware roadblocks to it. They also sell the hardware at a loss, which means locking it down if you don’t want someone to build a supercomputer out of it on your dime.

The NES could not run unlicensed software. In fact, the NES arguably invented the App Store licensing model. Every console (save for the toploaders) has a lockout chip that resets the CPU every second or so unless it's able to exchange encrypted data with a companion lockout chip in the cartridge. Nintendo used this to "protect" the US gaming market from games they didn't approve of.

Technically, the Family Computer (Famicom) could run unlicensed software. It even had a BASIC interpreter and a keyboard controller. Nintendo realized their mistake very quickly, however, which is why the NES has a lockout chip and the disk add-on for the Famicom also locked out third-party disks. (Note that part of the system was the ability to buy blank disks and pay to download games onto them via a Disk Writer kiosk, hence why the disks were proprietary, not just the games.) A number of game developers in Japan found that to be a bit of a shock, from what I've heard.

In my opinion there is an important difference between purpose-built entertainment devices like consoles where sometimes HW cost is donated by the manufacturer and a multi-functional generic computer like laptop/desktop and partly smartphone. I care less about locked PS4 ecosystem than smartphonrs and computers.

> Should closed hardware even be legal to sell?

I don't see why not. If it's a problem, then either a competitor will emerge, or people won't purchase the product.

If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in the end. Besides that I actually love the closed system of the iPhone + App Store, we can't just go around banning things anytime we think we might not like them. Every time I see this story it just annoys me. I want the iPhone and App Store to be a closed system. Opening it up is the bad idea here.

Philosophically, amazon.com and Facebook are closed systems too. As is Wal-Mart and UPS. I'm not sure why we're only focused on hardware systems here, what's the meaningful distinction?

> If it's truly a bad business practice, it'll lose out in the end.

Many bad business practices only lose out because they're made illegal. Protection rackets are great for the ones running them. Although one could quibble that the police is the cheapest universally available protection racket that pushes out all the competition.

It seems worth considering startups and entrenched near-monopoly situations differently. Competition is hard to bring back in the latter, and certainly consumers might well benefit from the right interventions. It doesn't mean a purist law to prohibit proprietary closed devices is necessary.

And I'd argue with your example of Facebook that they should at minimum be compelled to enable universal linking so that other app vendors can intercept outbound links directly, and users can choose their web browser etc.

Hardware is a physical product you buy. You don't buy Amazon or Facebook. They are a service not a product. The meaningful distinction is that you should OWN the hardware you buy and thus it shouldn't be limited by the manufacturer except for things that are vital for product function.

We're mostly talking about the App Store, but even so I don't think there's much of a meaningful distinction. I can't choose to get a 12 pack of cola that's half Pepsi, 1/4th Mountain Dew, and 1/4 Cherry Coke either.

I can't choose to use iMessage with my non-existent Facebook account either. Why? Why are they allowed to lock in their software?

Same argument.

But I can choose to make myself a 12 pack of half Pepsi, 1/4th Mountain Dew, and 1/4 Cherry. That's the entire point. There is no artificial restriction that mixing Pepsi with some other soft drink results in a toxic mixture. But that is essentially what's happening on the App store/Phone hardware space.

IMessage facebook messenger case is not an artificial lock. They are fundamentally different protocols. It's not like IMessage supports facebook messenger and Apple just say no you can't use it. There is a real difference here.

Apple is artificially restricting usage of it's phones for no other reason then greed. If the app store would actually protect against malware I would agree that it might have some value but it really doesn't. The app store is filled with mountains and mountains of malware. But since it's malware that makes Apple money it's completely fine.

Apple mobile hardware is really amazing. The best there is in the world I think. But the software locks it down so much that it's essentially a paper weight compared to its potential.

> It's not like IMessage supports facebook messenger and Apple just say no you can't use it. There is a real difference here.

You can make a protocol then and Facebook won't allow you to use it. They're definitely artificially locking you in. It's no different.

> Apple is artificially restricting usage of it's phones for no other reason then greed.

Really? That's the only reason? Does it not seem odd to you that iPhones are considered safe devices, and that Apple goes to great lengths to protect them and user data and now companies are complaining about the App Store? Once they can circumvent the App Store, then can put all sorts of garbage tracking and malware into applications. iPhone and the App Store have been around for more than 10 years, and then over the last two years Apple requires no tracking, prompting of data usage, soon a data use "nutrition scorecard" and now just this year all of these companies are complaining about pricing? Give me a break. If you want to call Apple greedy, then it's just a case of pots calling kettles black. Notice how there aren't any customers complaining about this oh so bad and greedy practice? I don't care what developers want here. I want my iPhone the way it is, and changing the App Store is bad in my view. I'll vote with my wallet in this case. If that means fewer applications because they want to circumvent these things that I want Apple to do, then that's fine, good riddance.

These companies can partner with Samsung or something and make their own phones and app stores. That's fine. But this isn't about that. It's about them wanting money and to abuse user data on the platform that Apple built.

> You can make a protocol then and Facebook won't allow you to use it. They're definitely artificially locking you in. It's no different.

If the technical requirements are met and Facebook won't allow then it indeed is not an artificial lock in. But I doubt that Facebook messenger can talk to IMessage right now. It's not the responsibility of either Facebook or Apple to make those two apps work together. The only thing they should not do is go out of their way to not allow them to interface. I.e. It should be possible for a user to write a bridge between those two apps.

> Really? That's the only reason? Does it not seem odd to you that iPhones are considered safe devices, and that Apple goes to great lengths to protect them and user data and now companies are complaining about the App Store? Once they can circumvent the App Store, then can put all sorts of garbage tracking and malware into applications. iPhone and the App Store have been around for more than 10 years, and then over the last two years Apple requires no tracking, prompting of data usage, soon a data use "nutrition scorecard" and now just this year all of these companies are complaining about pricing? Give me a break. If you want to call Apple greedy, then it's just a case of pots calling kettles black. Notice how there aren't any customers complaining about this oh so bad and greedy practice? I don't care what developers want here. I want my iPhone the way it is, and changing the App Store is bad in my view. I'll vote with my wallet in this case. If that means fewer applications because they want to circumvent these things that I want Apple to do, then that's fine, good riddance.

I don't consider Apple safe devices because of the App store. Every single protection that is afforded by the app store is actually provided by the OS. With the exception of manual review and that is a subjective process full of holes.

Can you explain to me, since you believe Apple is actually not user hostile, why does it allow obvious malware in the app store such as apps that appear to be free but once you install them you end up in micro-transaction hell? Why do they allow micro-transactions at all? Micro-transactions are very rarely if ever beneficial to the user. What's up with the apps that promise a feature and don't deliver? I'm not joking when I say that the quality of apps I can download for free on my desktop is way higher then most stuff that is in the app store. App stores have brought down the quality of software significantly. It's so bad that my default stance on anything on the app store is that it must be trash because that's what it is usually.

> I don't see why not. If it's a problem, then either a competitor will emerge, or people won't purchase the product.

Aka "the invisible hand will fix it". We have been waiting quite a few years for this and it did not happen. Instead we got the complete opposite: a duopoly of android and iOS which nobody, not even Microsoft, can compete against. At this point, we have to acknowledge that simply waiting is not going to fix anything.

It works most of the time, actually. I'm not against regulation (I argue that companies like Facebook and other social media companies shouldn't be able to merge or acquire each other, for example), but it needs to be sensible regulation.

I also don't think a duopoly is necessarily bad, and in this case I think it's not even a duopoly long-term. It is right now because Google and Apple are the leaders, but it's only a matter of time until other large companies (Samsung, Huawei, etc.) gain a foothold and market share. Being a local duopoly (in the US) is one thing versus being a global duopoly.

Further, I'm not really convinced that this duopoly we have is even bad. Why is it bad that we have a duopoly? Is it only acceptable if we have 3 large players? Why aren't we complaining about the Microsoft and Apple duopoly with computers? I think this is just arbitrary really and it won't be long-lived anyway.

But Android in general doesn’t have these restrictions. Plenty of phones (including Google’s flagships!) support rooting, and you can install a third-party App Store like F-droid even when they only support sideloading. So that’s not really a good example of market forces failing to solve the unlocked hardware availability problem.

Something can be both "good business" that is make you a lot of money, and a terrible thing for society.

There's an incredible amount of effort to prevent that - we can start with obligatory things like slavery, but there's a lot more - safety regulation in cars or airplanes, food safety, various environmental protections, employee protections, and so on.

"I want the iPhone and App Store to be a closed system." is kind of like saying "I want powerful car that doesn't have to follow emission limits." - I believe you that you want it, but you having it might hurt others, and that's why it's not allowed.

While I'm sympathetic to this idea, one thing that I get hung up on is game consoles. I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console is locked down is part of the value proposition for me. It's a pro, rather than a con.

Or you can just play with friends who don't cheat. Cheaters are only a problem if your friends are jackasses or you play with strangers.

So... we're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-cheating strangers when your friends are all busy, in order that every computing device, instead of just lots and lots of them, can have arbitrary software installed on it?

This feels like losing options, not gaining them.

> we're gonna throw out the freedom to play with non-cheating strangers

Freedom? No. Opportunity? Maybe. I think communities would arise to fill the demand though. Pseudo-anonymous reputation systems tied to matchmaking could fill the roll. I have a group of pseudo-anonymous friends/acquaintances I frequently play games with online. None of us cheat and if any of us did, we'd stop playing with them. We don't need big brother. We don't need technical solutions to social problems.

Maybe they could form a company for this purpose, and then sell a product that fills that need?

That only works if you have friends to play both your teammates and the enemy team which is a very tall order. Most people play with strangers overall, and most people who play with friends just have them as teammates against stranger opponents.

So then the value add is that you can play with orders of magnitude more people than just the ones you happen to know and won’t cheat?

Do you have 150 friends to play battle royale?

Have you played games before? Even in a 5vs5 game, it's hard to gather 9 friends at the same time, with a similar skill.

Of course I have.

Then you should know that the option "just play with friends" is not entirely realistic.

> I enjoy multiplayer shooters, and I like knowing that none of my opponents are using bots. So the fact that the console is locked down is part of the value proposition for me.

The issue here is that you're using "locked down" too generically. What you actually want is something like remote attestation. The device can assert with a signature that it's running a particular version of the OS and a particular version of the game and in so doing allows you to know that the user isn't cheating by using some other software.

That has nothing at all to do with whether you can install arbitrary software on the device or who gets a percentage of what. Even if you could install the Amazon store on your PlayStation and the install Cheat App from there, the device wouldn't then assert that you're running the official game (because you're not), and then the other players would know that and be able to boot you out. You don't need the other player's console to refuse to install an arbitrary app for that, only for it to be able to tell you when that has happened.

I don't see a huge issue there. You need not necessarily be able to run your code in parallel to game, the console could provide the option to run either your game or other code.

Of course you can now make the argument that any form of code execution increases the attack surface. And you're right but hypervisors can be quite effective. Also the XBOX One can be put in developer mode to run arbitrary UWP apps and has not yet had any major exploits (to my knowledge), where the PS4 has no similar features, but has had several firmware versions with significant security flaws.

FYI you can reboot every retail xbox into DEV mode and run your own games and code:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-apps/devki...

Switching back and forth between retail and DEV mode is as easy as rebooting.

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

No.

> You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior) because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't.

You can actually. They demand this kind of DRM because they know the customer would sooner say yes to it than not get the movie. But that's only because they're in the better bargaining position as the only source for the movie -- it's leveraging the copyright monopoly into perfidious control over the device market. But they still, at the end of the day, want your money. Which means that if the thing they're insisting on is prohibited, they'll make it work without it.

Consider the general argument you're making. It's basically that if DRM was prohibited by law then Hollywood wouldn't distribute movies at all. But that's farcical -- they would have no revenue. Instead they would just distribute them without it, because they'd have no other option.

Okay, but what about your edge case, the really fancy one with the hardware anti-tampering. Wouldn't they at least not have that one? Still no, because it's still the same thing. The only point in having that is to try to push back the day when the movie is on all the pirate sites. But it's only to push it back while they're still distributing it using the higher margin distribution channels. If DRM was prohibited whatsoever then they couldn't use it there, so they would distribute it even there without it because otherwise there is no high margin early release market to protect.

Which makes me think, what prevents me from putting a lens in front to the projector and directly imaging the projection into a camera sensor? Modern cameras can record lossless 48bpp equiv. video in 4K, it would pretty much be a 1:1 copy given sufficiently sophisticated optics.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the only reason why no one is ripping movies using Prima Cinema projectors and commodity grade hardware is the price. If they removed DRM it wouldn't make much of a difference, the limiting factor is already the price of the projector.

I honestly think that DRM is very much like antivirus in the sense that the only reason anybody buys into it is that the companies who develop it pay sales reps to convince corporations that it's something they need when it's really just poisonous snake oil and paying money to someone to shoot you in the foot.

The movies are probably watermarked, so they'd know who leaked them, and then sue the leakers for all they're worth.

This is how some video game demos are managed. Subtle color variations are used throughout the game window to uniquely finger print each copy of the game during media blackout.

Indeed. There are, however, ways around that.

I would be surprised if there wasn’t a theater projectionist in the warez scene that has a setup like the one you describe.

DRM is ridiculous because consuming the product is a side channel.

Well, there's some practical considerations - getting the refresh rate sync'd up, avoiding or filtering moire patterns out, getting the colors and such just right, things like that. However, it's possible enough that most theater projectors already have DRM restrictions that shut the system down if you start fiddling with the image path. The password to authorize an image path change is only handed out to supervisors. Evidently, access to such codes were so uncommon that, during the 3D movies era of last decade, most projectionists wouldn't bother swapping out 3D stereographic filters for 2D showings because it would require getting management involved.

Modern cameras will actually automatically sync their shutter rates to any flickering light sources. As for colors, they are designed to let you apply lookup-table based corrections by providing huge amounts of color information you can correct later.

Crucially, this approach wouldn't trigger anything because all of the equipment would work outside of the projector. You would add the lenses and camera aligned and just after the projector. In effect, the system would take the place of the screen in the image path. I don't know of any protected image screen that can detect tampering.

I'm really happy with my closed hardware as the tightly controlled environment promises the customer that the software run in it will be high quality and on some level will be vetted before allowed to the platform. This also attracts other developers to create high-quality software, as those good enough will be highlighted by the platform owner, which in turn means increased sales.

And I really can't say the same about open platforms, which usually UX-wise are awful and for that I'm willing to give away the "freedom" some other platform might provide.

i haven’t found that utopia you describe on either the apple of google play store.

> I'm really happy with my closed hardware as the tightly controlled environment promises the customer that the software run in it will be high quality and on some level will be vetted before allowed to the platform. This also attracts other developers to create high-quality software,

I am not sure whether this is sarcasm or not.

Since it seems like it is not, let me say that most closed platforms are absolutely garbage. Let us not think only of the iPhones and the Androids of the world, and instead focus on everything else. Think industrial control. Even the cinema stuff mentioned by the GP I'm sure contains software of the worst quality.

All you have to do is compare the Apple AppStore with the Android AppStore. How many apps on Android have been found to contain malware? also when it comes to quality and design, Android AppStore is terrible compared to apple.

Considering Android is also mostly closed hardware, and that the Android store is exactly as "tightly controlled" as Apple's, thanks for proving my point. If now this was sarcasm, sorry.

Some customers buy into the Apple ecosystem because of its walled garden. Not despite of it.

Really? Who?

Not my sole reason, but since you asked, here I am. I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with.

I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly.

I spend all day thinking about computers, I don't want to also be my own IT professional and security team, especially for a slab of glass I hold in my hand. I accept that I have to do some IT and security thinking about my iOS devices, but the more the walled garden provides, the less is on me.

I understand that with this "safety" comes a loss of "liberty," but I find that an acceptable tradeoff for consumer hardware in my personal life. I don't automatically assume that the right tradeoffs for me are also the right tradeoffs for everyone else.

If someone wants to sideload apps and/or develop their own custom apps without some kind of special developer status, I have no problem suggesting they buy something else.

I accept that I am not the typical HN reader.

Should a parent really get their children iPhones?

If you are a parent, you decide for yourself.

I question the validity of presuming this question has a correct answer for all parents under all circumstances.

Should a parent really get their children iPhones?

Not your kids. Not your business.

Maybe, maybe not, but by like 5th grade most of them seem to have one regardless. Many younger kids have one. By 7th it's practically all of them (a smartphone, that is, though yeah, often an iPhone)

Our school assigns every kid an iPad. In Kindergarten. Good idea? I kinda don't think so, though it's been useful this year, of course. But it happens.

Increasingly parents have trouble letting kids wander the neighborhood on their own without a tracker/communication-device on them, and a smartphone's really good at serving that role. There are other options but kids want to have their smartphone on them, and as soon as you want them to be able to do one other smartphone-thing any other option starts to look kinda pointless.

(just relating observations of parenting in the wild, not my own parenting approach)

Why this can’t be a part of parental control function where you can restrict certain function on devices you control?

I will add to this: I wish my parents had stuck with iPhones. The amount of IT support that I had to do after they switched went up quite a bit. It's been a few years so they've adjusted (and I've just ignored their complaints and told them to fix it themselves) but who knows what garbage they've installed on their phones! They're not tech savvy. It would be quite nice if they had stuck with iPhones.

I remember they got Samsung tablets and when I had looked at them to see if I would like to buy one... I saw they were completely full of - essentially - spyware and malware.

> I give my children iPhones. I like having certain family controls over what they use, and further controls over what appears in the app store to begin with.

Okay.. then their opinion is what's relevant here, not yours.

> I like having a single vendor for all my software purchases, that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly.

Weren't they in hot water recently for forcing developers to use their deceptive subscription trial system?

To your point, and more to the dispute with Epic:

I’m sure you also want to make sure your kids aren’t spending all your money on dumb in-app purchases. Having a controlled mechanism for that provides an actual value to you, and letting companies circumvent it would make things harder for you. Are the fees for that mechanism fair? That’s a business negotiation.

> …that I can trust to issue refunds and discontinue subscriptions promptly.

This is a big one. I'm significantly more likely to subscribe to a service/app if I'm able to do so through iTunes, because it means the app developer can't directly reach into my wallet. If I hit "Cancel Subscription" in the iTunes subscription panel, it's canceled, no ifs, ands, or buts, and no hidden unsubscribe links or intentionally obtuse unsubscription processes to have to contend with.

This is a huge thing for consumers to give up for the sake of developer freedom. If Apple begins to allow third party payment systems, developers should be required to connect said payment systems to Apple-provided standardized subscription control APIs so strong user control is maintained.

Raises hand.

I don't wanna have to worry about stupid computer shit when I'm just trying to use my iPad or iPhone as a tool to accomplish something else. Drawing, playing music, reading, writing, edutainment for the kids, very occasionally a game. Maybe the odd SSH session. If I decide I want some software to help me with any of those things I just want it to be in the App Store, and I just want it to use the App Store payment system. I don't want competing app stores because that might mean that sometimes what I want isn't on the Apple one, following Apple's rules about spying on my and otherwise behaving as badly as desktop software and webapps do these days. It means I have to search more than one store. Now we're veering into the stupid computer shit I don't want to have to worry about, again.

That doesn't address the issue: those who would can't.

You don't lose anything if you don't want to.

You should have to keep doing what you already do.

> That doesn't address the issue: those who would can't.

Then buy any other general computing product on the market. I'd be more sympathetic to this concern if Android didn't exist. Meanwhile it does, and the users who picked Apple did it because they don't care about this, they don't care very much about this, or because they actively want the App Store restrictions and the ecosystem that they create.

> You don't lose anything if you don't want to.

I very well might, though. Changes to rules change how actors behave in a system. The way software developers and publishers behave on iOS could change in ways that I don't like if they're able to viably distribute software outside the App Store. That might be OK, except forcing developers and publishers to follow the App Store rules is part of the appeal of the devices. If that'd been a major sticking point for me, I could have bought Android.

> Then buy any other general computing product on the market

That's not how free market works.

And it's a very silly objection.

Android is a licensed platform.from Google, but Google does not make the majority of devices.

Apple manufacturs the devices, but they sell them to me locked in the ecosystem they profit from.

Imagine being unable of refueling because your car does not work with standard oil pumps and you had to go to Apple licensed gas station whom Apple charges 30% to.

They would be prohibited from selling the car.

> I very well might, though.

But you wouldn't if you don't change your behaviour.

> Changes to rules change how actors behave in a system

That's exactly what many want from Apple.

Change the rules.

Nobody is asking Apple to relax their safety rules inside their walled garden.

If they can't allow sideloading, they're not as good as I thought.

> I could have bought Android.

I don't buy it.

If Apple sold Android powered iPhones you would still buy an iPhone, you're are buying the brand, not the product.

> That's not how free market works.

It... isn't? How not?

> Imagine being unable of refueling because your car does not work with standard oil pumps and you had to go to Apple licensed gas station whom Apple charges 30% to.

Then I'd probably buy a competing brand of car, if that bothered me? You know, one of my other choices on the market? Like how there are a bunch of Android device vendors and a couple Linux mobile vendors that I could choose if Apple's App Store model bothered me, rather than being something I actively want? I am 100% not following how this isn't a market working. The choices people are making may not be the ones you prefer—happens to me all the time with markets—but there are choices.

> That's exactly what many want from Apple.

> Change the rules.

Many developers and publishers, maybe. I'm very much unconvinced that's what the subset of users who are aware of this issue in the first place, want, for the most part. I think if it were a major problem for them they'd have bought an Android device, or something else.

> If they can't allow sideloading, they're not as good as I thought.

They do allow sideloading, it's just fairly inconvenient. They can't allow a form of it that's convenient enough to allow other app stores to thrive, without changing the character of the ecosystem for their users. I don't think any amount of being "good" at what they do would change that.

> If Apple sold Android powered iPhones you would still buy an iPhone, you're are buying the brand, not the product.

OK, cool, guess continuing this exchange is pointless.

> Then I'd probably buy a competing brand of car, if that bothered me?

But you also bought Apple approved tires, Apple approved child seat, Apple approved free miles on the highway and Apple approved breaking fluid

You can't use them anywhere else, maybe you can sell them, but you have to reset the car to factory settings

Whatever you bought cannot be used anywhere else, except another Apple car

That's how vendor lock in works, I'm European but I know US laws don't appreciate when a company locks users in

>Changes to rules change how actors behave in a system. The way software developers and publishers behave on iOS could change in ways that I don't like

Probably most apps would still be on store and hopefully you would get a cheaper version from the developer website.

What is clear but you probably don't want to admit is Apple is not fighting here for your safety but for extracting mroe money, if they were not that greedy Epic,Spotify would not have started this wars and you would have been safe in the wallgarden and extremely satisfied that the other people inside can't escape either.

> What is clear but you probably don't want to admit is Apple is not fighting here for your safety but for extracting mroe money, if they were not that greedy Epic,Spotify would not have started this wars and you would have been safe in the wallgarden and extremely satisfied that the other people inside can't escape either.

Why wouldn't I admit that? Of course the situation benefits them. I just doubt there's a way to give me all the aspects of their devices & ecosystem that I value, that doesn't also benefit them. I'd love to see them drop the cut they take, for instance. That being so high benefits me not at all, so far as I can tell.

... and if someone comes out with devices that actually compete with the specific sort of product they offer, including the integrated & closed app store and restrictions on what apps are allowed to do, and takes a lower cut of app store sales, then Apple might have to reduce their cut, too. Or this current scuffle might end up not changing the app store rules much, but dropping the cut they take substantially—personally, that's an outcome I'd love.

IMO the ideal situation for Apple fans is that Apple is forced to offer a choice to developers, either pay a fair fixed charge(like you would pay for webhosting, you have different tiers or plans and fortuneteller with web hosting you have true competition) or a developer could decide to give Apple 30% cut. Probably most developers would chose to pay the fixed fee and the Apple users will have cheaper apps and subscriptions(in app payments) while enjoying the restrictions that nobody can have the option to escape the wallgarden(not sure how are you happy with this though, say in a country Apple is forced to remove all chat apps that are encrypted including browsers and then Apple fans would just say `you should have predicted this,sell the phone and use Android`)

Nothing what you say has absolutely ANYTHING to do with you being locked out from ever running your own software on Apple devices.

This is a completely false argument you're putting up - you can HAVE all of those protections while STILL having the option of replacing protected software with less safe one.

Please stop peddling this false argument.

It's not false though? Games are a thing. In the sense of how systems run and how actors make decisions in it, not in terms of video games. Any change that makes it convenient to run a competing app store will almost certainly change the experience of using iOS, even for those who choose not to use an alternative app store.

If there's a way to allow easily & conveniently running one's own software without letting competing app stores work, I'm all for it. In fact there is a way to run your own software, it's just inconvenient, because time-limited so you have to re-install it periodically, which effectively kills any possibility of running a successful app store via that method.

You're right in theory, but possibly not in practice.

Consider two vendors: A and G.

A provides a full walled garden. G provides a walled garden, but lets you side-load whatever you like, you can ignore the apps in the garden.

Everyone making apps for A puts them in the walled garden, so if you own an A, you buy an app from the garden.

For G, vendors decide for themselves whether to use the walled garden. Many choose to sell direct and avoid both the markup and the hassle of getting their apps approved.

They also get to make even more money by embedding surveillance capitalism into their apps if they sell direct. Or include completely unmoderated and unregulated adtech.

As a user, isn't G better than A, since I have the choice?

It is better than A, provided that every app in A's walled garden is also in G's walled garden. However, if in practice the apps I want to use are in A's walled garden, but sold direct on G to avoid the 30% hit, then in practice, as a user, I am better off with A if what I want are apps from the walled garden.

Of course, I can always do my research to figure out whether a side-loaded app on G is safe to use. But if what I wanted was to buy apps without having to think about them, then I can be better off with A in practice even though in theory, G provides everything A provides, and more.

Now, is there really a problem getting all the apps I use on A from G's walled garden? I don't personally know, since I don't want to go to the trouble of sorting out what is available in G's store versus what I have to sideload. So there's plenty of room to argue that in practice, G is superior to A.

But I do not think it is necessarily superior.

On the Mac, where the App store is not required, a great deal of software is not in the App store and as a result the user does not benefit from App Store policies for said software. By forbidding sideloading, it forces developers to meet the App Store standards or not play at all. There are developers whose software is present on the iOS app store but the companion Mac app is not.

I don't like the complete lockout either. I like being able to run my apps on my device. But it is most definitely true that the ability to sideload apps results, in practice, in some developers opting out of providing App Store protected apps in favor of asking you to sideload.

On every discussion about this topic on HN, there has been at least one but typically many more commenters saying they love the walled garden and they would pay a premium for it. They trust Apple so they are OK with paying them 30% more instead of paying the app developers directly. They would never dare recommend Windows or Linux or Android to their parents but they would happily recommend them to get iPhones and iPads because they would not end up with a virus-ridden device.

Personally, this is so different from the way I think that I find it utterly surprising, much more so from the tech savvy audience of HN. But apparently preferring walled gardens and being willing to pay extra to obtain one and even more every time you buy something on it is not an uncommon opinion to have.

Personally, this is so different from the way I think that I find it utterly surprising

Seven billion people on the planet. It shouldn't be surprising to learn that not everyone thinks the way that you do.

I wonder if it's an age thing. When you're young and have more time than money, tinkering with the technical hassles of your phone is worth it to save a buck or two. When you're older and have more money than time, you happily pay $399 for an iPhone if it means getting hours or days of your life to spend on other things.

Age was it, in part, for me. I used to do lots of hardware and OS tinkering. Now the last goddamn thing I want to do is troubleshoot graphical glitches in x-windows, or try to get my audio to handle changing outputs correctly, or cross my fingers while "dist-upgrade" runs, or fix scaling and font rendering in GTK apps, or whatever, when I'm just trying to do something else.

At some point I became acutely aware of every time I was doing something with a computer that was simply fucking with the computer, and not actually getting anything that I wanted or needed to get done, except to the extent that making my computer be not-broken is required for those things. Around that time I was exposed to macOS and iOS and finally had an actual choice to (mostly) not have to do that when I don't want to, and if I decide I would like to tinker then I can use... any other option on the market.

I'd probably be screwing around with trying to run NetBSD on Android phones and turn them into mobile computers I can plug monitors and keyboards into and embedding RPis and Arduinos in all kinds of crap around the house, if I were 16 again.

At the age I am now, though, you'd literally have to pay me to even think about doing any of that. Even when I screw around with getting allegedly set-it-and-forget-it RPi media projects (think: kodi, lakka) working I usually end up regretting it. I do know how to work with those sorts of things. I also very much don't want to any more, but do still want computer-things doing stuff for me with few or no hassles. Luckily these days you can pay to get that, in some categories at least. Largely from Apple, if you want them to last a while—I do wish they had actual competition in that sense. More options that don't spy (much) and Just Work (mostly), please.

You just described why i switched to Mac OS from Linux :)

First, I embrace your choice to not go with a locked down, un-free device. That is entirely within the spirit of being a hacker.

Second, I very much argue that if there was no app store, consumers would pay 30% less. The app store and ecosystem provide something for developers, and if you remove the app store, the developers either do it for themselves, or pay somebody else to do it for them.

Of course, if there was meaningful competition, the fees might be less, or the value provided to developers might be more. But I doubt that prices would drop the full 30%.

I say this as someone who worked in tech distribution. Great things can happen when you cut out a middleman, but it's often surprising how difficult it is to replicate the middleman's distribution advantages.

All that being said, I'm not here to debate whether prices would fall 30%, 27.2%, or even 10%. I agree with your basic premise: tech-savvy people have less upside and more downside from owning locked-down devices.

Hmm... I'm pretty tech savvy I'd say, but I don't think there's anyway the benefits I'd gain outside Apple's wall garden would compare to the ecosystem I live in now.

Apple's rent seeking a bit with the App Store, but I have faith in their privacy protections, that they'll continue to support my devices for a long time after purchase, and that they'll be fairly prompt with security updates to all my devices.

And cobbling together the connections between ear phones, watch, phone, computer and TV would be quite tedious, probably no where near as smooth, and a pain in the ass to upkeep.

At the end of the day, besides my computer, I don't really give a hoot about side loading apps from different app stores, or I dunno... customizing things more I guess? I'm not really sure.

There is the possibility increased app store competition (say, if it was ruled anti-competitive to only allow Apple's App Store on Apple Products) would make Apple's App Store better though. Discovery can be kind of a pain in my opinion.

So, I'm not opposed to there being more app stores, but it'd probably take a fair amount of nudging to get me to actually try one.

Just to make a vast generalisation with no hard evidence: I wouldn’t be surprised if it often came down to age. When I was younger, I had the desire, and more importantly the time, to keep everything I used as open source as I could afford.

Fast forward a decade (or maybe 2) and while I am still very pro open-all-the-things, I am happy to pay more for a controlled environment to run things I rely on but don’t care to spend time on maintaining and configuring.

I also like having a car with an automatic transmission and engine instrumentation that tells me when to get the oil changed and perform maintenance. My interaction with my car is strictly monetary and burns none of my mental cycles.

I have 4 other people in my house, plus I'm the "tech guy" for maybe another dozen people. I appreciate how simple that job is when everyone has iPhones.

I'm curious, how many apps do you have installed on your phone, and how many of them are paid ones? Especially, ones using subscription models? Less than 10, or dozens?

I have over a dozen and I really appreciate the ability to manage (or at least view) those in one place. Managing my non-app (website) subscriptions is quite a mess.

And it is only one advantage of the walled garden. I don't have to think much when I install an app - is it from the developer, or someone has tampered with it?

Me for one. I don't want to deal with several different terms of service, different ways of payment, lack of clarity on if an app is trustworthy or not.

Apple is simple. I trust Apple to protect me and honestly based on the stories I read about Google's Play Store I feel more confident in Apple to do the right thing for consumers in the long run. Their incentive is aligned to my needs (good safe hardware that protects me from making potentially poor choices -- even as someone who is in the "tech" world)

Is Apple's app store actually protecting you from anything, or do you just get the illusion that its protecting you?

Although the situation has gotten much better the past couple years, its still not uncommon to find apps on the app store that charge like 10$ a month for some wallpapers or something of a similar nature. Furthermore, every few months there are new news articles coming out about how ""XYZ"" app is collecting ""ABC"" data from iPhone users(like apps scraping clipboard data, or apps trying to access the microphone or camera when the user thinks there should be no recording going on).

The claim that the iOS is actually protecting users seems dubious at best. Apple tends to exert control over the app store, but it always seems to be in response to users finding out that some app is doing something evil rather then Apple protecting users up front to begin with.

It's providing me with a unified experience, which is a benefit. You might not value it but others do.

iOS is protecting me WAY more than Google Play store. I also read plenty about Apple being TOO strict on developers more than I read them being loose. (which sorry to the developers out there and definitely an area that apple can and should improve on)

Your point that some bad actors get through doesn't invalidate that Apple seems to be doing the best job of keeping the app store secure and consumer friendly.

“Apple does an imperfect job of delivering that value proposition, therefore it should be illegal to even try” is quite the take. Keep in mind that there are huge confirmation biases here; when Apple blocks scammy or insecure apps before they even come out, nobody notices, but if they miss a single one, everyone notices.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, as Kierkegaard said. But freedom is an incredibly worthwhile thing, so much so that anxiety is the cost society should for it.

The costs of Apple's walled garden have become so obscene at this point that I consider the pro-Apple position to be immoral.

Me.

I buy Apple products not because it's a walled garden per se, but because it's Apple's walled garden. Apple has been the only vendor to provide me with a consistently top-quality user experience, so I trust them to make decisions that benefit me. I don't have the same trust relationship with other software and hardware vendors, so their walled gardens I would protest against.

Me. My life is too full of other things to want to worry about the latest bit of malware floating around on Android, or whether my phone will stop getting updates a year or two after I own it.

To me, a phone should work for me, not the other way around. I'd rather spend my time living my life than fussing with the technicalities of my phone. I'm willing to pay extra for it.

I also went with iPhone because I trust Apple to vet its apps better than any other vendor. When someone else does as good a job, I'll head over there. But for now, iPhone is where it's at.

Me. It limits the attack surface and all the problems that come with openness, very visible in the Android world.

The problem is that giving a choice to users is risky and not acceptable at scale because people are not smart, they do dumb things all the time; like pasting untrusted scripts into devtools console and getting hacked. Or replying to mail scams.

So I am happy I can hand an iPad to my parent and not be there to secure all activities they do online.

We used to joke about the fact that no matter what you do to educate users, if told that to see a video of funny dancing pigs[1] all they have to do is give the installer root privileges...

Users will give the installer root privileges.

History bore this out over and over and over again.

—

[1]: See also: Crapware-laden browser toolbars, Java runtimes, Adobe Reader, Windows crapware, Smart TVs, ...

Me. I like the sandboxing. I like Apple Pay (especially for subscriptions). I like the new random-gen email addresses system. I like that apps have to use these things and can't just opt-out, because I may have to use the app for work or something.

It's not the only thing I care about, but it's not all just strict downside.

Me, without a doubt. I'm too old and busy to worry about configuring my phone or making sure that it's safe / clean.

I also buy it for my parents for the same reason.

To be fair, this is a somewhat common sentiment that I’ve seen on HN. Similar is the “non tech oriented parent” point, where you don’t have to worry about your parents phone getting a virus.

Me also. I don't want to spend another second of my life dealing with malware.

Me.

For some background, I’m a longtime hardware and (more frequently) software developer. I also do quite a bit of ML consulting.

I was gifted a MacBook Air many years ago. I was an avid Ubuntu (and, to a much lesser extent, Windows) user and developer at the time so I didn’t know what to make of it. I certainly didn’t expect to be blown away and switch to all Apple devices.

Eight years later and I’m solidly in the Apple ecosystem. I have an open mind about switching but I love the reliability and consistency of the user experience. I can count on the core apps that I frequently reach for to just work. And if they don’t work there’s almost always an obvious, low-time, solution to fix them. I still do a great deal of development in Windows, but it’s exclusively in a Parallels VM on a MacBook and I’ve long since abandoned my desktop for development.

The Apple ecosystem has built up enough trust with me that I also use it when flying (Foreflight on an iPad). You couldn’t pay me to switch to an android tablet as an alternative for that use case.

My largest complaint is python development is not great on OS X out of the box. But that’s easy enough to work around.

The "walled garden" isn't really the issue most at stake here, it's the in-app purchases. To me, it's hard to argue against the benefits of having a one-stop-shop safe-and-secure place to download apps on your phone which contains all your personal information.

However, to me, it's hard to argue that Apple should keep getting money from you once you've established a loyal customer base and they are giving you money.

And as a not-so-crazy take on this issue, why isn't Apple insisting on taking a cut of, say, the check I'm depositing into Chase and just uploaded a photograph of it. It's revenue, it's in the app ... why isn't Apple taking a piece of that?

The only people paying the cost of that are companies like Epic, and if their games aren’t available for iOS that will affect the popularity of the iPhone. Maybe Apple backs down on the in-app purchases, or maybe they don’t and that decision drives away developers followed by users. Until then, we’re just seeing them negotiate with each other via PR.

Indeed, that is exactly the argument made by the article.

If Apps are delivering new content and functionality in response to users directly giving them money then in what way is the walled garden walled? Just download the "door" app - now you're downloading arbitrary apps from a 3rd party. What happens when you download steam and suddenly people are downloading totally arbitrary code. Oh and that arbitrary code is hijacking whatsapp and sending itself to all your contacts?

So, the core issue, it seems to me, is one of outcomes. Do we want a locked down future? Or do we want an open one? Do we even want to have a choice?

That last question is actually important - maybe "the market" (meaning whoever is positioned at time) should decide. Maybe "we" already have "decided" and the rest is just that decision playing out.

But I don't think this discussion is that useful without specifics. Imagine 10 years forward - Amazon, Facebook and Google all require locked down (you do not have root) hardware to access anything they store for you/to buy anything. Maybe you can still give your Raspberry Pi an IP and send packets, but interaction with any mainstream entity requires signing your traffic with a key on a chip. ("To solve identity theft" "for the children" "do you want the terrorists to win?")

Is that a world you want to live in?

There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial.

There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to have one phone, one phone carrier, one ISP, etc. and thus those companies shouldn't hold their customers hostage. Turning that into a legal principle is left as an exercise for the reader.

There's nothing stopping you from putting a Blu-ray player in your rack next to the Prima box and the cost is trivial.

There's nothing stopping an iPhone owner from also buying an Android phone, and the cost is trivial.

There's a common-sense argument that a person is only going to have one phone, one phone carrier

There are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, maybe even millions, who have more than one phone.

This is a common argument, but it's wrong IMO

iPhone is not an Android competitor, iPhone is a Samsung/Huawei/LG etc competitor

Android competes with iOS

If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an iPhone that would be different

But I can't

If I could install iOS on a Samsung device or Android on an iPhone that would be different

I'm with you there. I'm so mad that I can't install iOS on any device I want. My Android phone? Nope. My HP laptop? Nope. My car entertainment system? Nope. My TRS-80? Nope. My waffle maker? Nope.

I even tried to install iOS on my cat, and she rebooted all over the rug.

Clearly this is a massive conspiracy by the Apple industrial complex to control what I do with the things I bought and paid for with my own money.

> My HP laptop?

Yes.

You could.

Hackintosh do exist, you know?

Buut it's illegal because Apple doesn't want to.

So blame Apple for your cat.

> "You can't argue that Prima Cinema should not be locked down (claiming anti-competitive behavior)"

Yes I can.

> because the paranoid film studios wouldn't even license their content if it wasn't

That's fine by me.

I think that the right legal and political concept to accomplish essentially the same goal is the “right to repair”. This is a concept that lots of people (outside of technology) have an immediate connection to, and the downsides of not having it are more clear (waste, less competition, bricking when companies go out of business).

From a regulatory standpoint, it seems easier than attempting to hand ‘closed’ hardware - less line drawing on what counts as firmware and more focus on what consumers need to properly use and maintain a device over a long period of time.

Would that apply to anything electrical, or with integrated circuits, or with a port or antenna, or connected to the Internet? Is there an exception for ROM? What about device-specific IDs or keys?

And I wonder what test the courts would accept (which the manufacturers would then build to): that the device can run arbitrary code? That each feature of the device is easily accessible via FOSS library or API? That access to each feature in the device could theoretically be reverse-engineered by a sufficiently motivated expert?

Interesting thought experiment.

I think this comparison is in bad faith. I would put it like this, it should definitely be illegal to be anti-competitive on general computing devices once you hit a significant revenue(the revenue bit only to allow small players to compete first and not be stifled).

Devices like Kindle are one purpose devices. It is supposed to be a replacement for a book. The integration with Kindle Store for ebooks can be complained about, but Amazon gives you the freedom to use ebooks from anywhere, infact if you can live with the bad experience you can use the browser itself to download them on the device.

iPhone is a different ballgame, it is an ecosystem creating device. I have no problem with them restricting the APIs for third party developers if it improves security on the device, that's a good thing. But then the rent seeking on apps like Spotify is just bad for upcoming companies and would be for users in the end. This is not just limited to software, they can use the same leverage to even kill companies in hardware space.

Sure, Apple doesn't have a monopoly in terms of device share, but they absolutely are in a position to kill a company.

Back in the heyday of the Bell system, telephones were owned by the phone company and you leased them as part of your phone service. That’s why they were made of indestructible steel and you could hang up by slamming the handset down on the receiver at full force if you were really ticked off at a telemarketer or something. That also meant phone phreaks tampering with their own phones were in dubious legal territory because they didn’t own the phones.

I think people should have the freedom to consent to buy whatever products they like so long as the functionality of the product is not kept secret. They also should (and do) have the freedom to try and jailbreak it but not to the point of obligating the manufacturer to produce an open system. But even if there is some sort of law that you can’t sell closed-stack systems, you could just migrate everything to equipment leases. IMO this would make matters much, much worse for the consumer in terms of having control over their own equipment (though maybe some equipment would be made to last again).

No, Can you Imagine a consumer PC manufacturer demanding such fee for Softwares using their hardware 10 years back and getting away with it? But in the age of Appstore(s), it would not be that alarming anymore if the computer manufacturer suddenly decides to lock the computer for non-store softwares instead of what's happening now(Warning, having to right-click to open etc.).

But the thing is, Apple has been stomping little guys forever and these Billion dollar gaming companies got benefited from it and only when the 30% cut has become too big of a chunk of their revenue; they are now making it as a David vs Goliath story. I had a retro arachnoid type game in Appstore for years which was under 'Arcade' category, when apple branded its gaming subscription service as 'Arcade', it forced me to change it to an irrelevant category.

As long I own it the vendor should unlock it, it the past the phones were locked to work only with SIM cards from the provider you bought the phone, when the contract expired the phone still remained locked and you had to find someone to unlock it for you, Then (hope my memory is not mistaken) something changed(probably laws) so carriers had to provide you with a code to unlock your phone when the contract was over. I think should be the same with game consoles if and only if they are subsidized , when I paid the full price then is my hardware. Preventing piracy should not affect my property rights and hardware should not brick itself if somehow detects I want to use it as I want. If Sony does not like this they could rent me the hardware for cheap or free because the bastards are locking already online features behind subscriptions.

> closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

Two thoughts:

1 - As software goes into everything, keep in mind that the universe of devices to which this applies will grow to include the set of "non-organic physical objects."

2 - And this will means that surprising outcomes could come of requiring everything to be open. Who do you trust to verify the software in your used car/refrigerator/lightswitch/water heater/etc? For devices where physical safety is at play, how do you verify that the (possibly aftermarket) software is up to code or other certification? Imagine every car sale or home inspection required a software assurance verification of every embedded system. Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance here.

>Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance here.

No they don't as I can't verify any of that. A perfect counterexample is the VW dieselsoftware.

(Edit: I did not downvote, this is a legitimate counterpoint.)

> perfect counterexample is the VW dieselsoftware

This is a great counterexample that inadvertently proves the point because in that case a) the software in question was exactly as delivered by the manufacturer so that b) consumers were able to receive compensation from rich VW for the faulty software.

If the software stack was open, a malfunction could be caused by aftermarket software (think: downloaded from Sourceforge) and therefore consumers would have no real remedy.

I suppose I could have been clearer on what's being assured. There is (obviously) value in being assured that you are buying what the manufacturer intended!

With an open system, that flaw would have been detected way earlier. Now the original post was about closed hardware, so I'm not sure if this was the case here. I have never tried flashing some motor control of a car, but it's possibly not even restricted, so "open system" would more likely refer to "open source".

While there might be an incentive to restrict modifications (at least on a car, which is potentially dangerous), I don't see counterpoints to open-sourceing the software that runs on (the car in this example).

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell

Yes (practically), but with a small exception.

If you are the only provider of the hardware. For example if you own a single patent protecting any component of the hardware. You are the sole manufacturer of any reasonably unique component of the hardware. You are the only manufacturer putting components together in this combination. Etc. Then it should be illegal. It should be an anti-trust violation. You are using your monopoly on the hardware to create a monopoly on the software running on the hardware. Moreover attempting to do so should constitute patent misuse and invalidate any patents that you previously owned on the hardware [1].

If the hardware is completely commoditized, consumers have the option to buy practically identical hardware from a competitor, then it should not be illegal. It's hard to come up with examples of such hardware

[1] Patent misuse is a doctrine where if you attempt to use a patent to create a monopoly on something else, you lose the patent. It is rarely but not never used by the courts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_misuse

(I acknowledge this is a fairly extreme position, and that it is partially created by motivated reasoning. But it is the most principled position I can find to reach the conclusion that I want)

I’m not sure if all cases need to be handled this way, with the Prima Server the main transaction seems to be the right to access the movies.

With a device that needs to be used in every day life (proof: smart phone penetration in many countries, more recently, access to certain locations only with a Covid app) it makes sense to have stronger protections for consumers and other businesses.

No, we should not make it illegal.

They maybe should have to say their product cannot be modified on the tin. That'd let consumers choose. It'd also let competitors advertise an advantage, if it is such.

I am in favor of right-to-repair, but that's a different concern than what you're asking about.

IMO, In most circumstances companies shouldn't need to document their products to the point that anyone can recreate them or modify them. But I don't think companies should actively create mechanisms (legal or otherwise) that prevent tinkerers.

> So the question is, should consumers be able to knowingly buy restricted hardware such as Prima Cinema?

If this would be restricted then you should keep it legal to buy but illegal to sell. Making the purchase illegal would only further criminalize the consumer.

First of all; Yes in my opinion.

But just as a devil's advocate; what about rentals? You can't just put new wheels on your ZipCar. If we made locked platforms illegal, they would simply become rentals. But at least it would be explicit then.

How about don't buy it? Here's another question. Is it reasonable to buy a product, knowing that it works a particular way, and then expect the law to change in order to change the way that product works?

> Is it reasonable to buy a product, knowing that it works a particular way, and then expect the law to change in order to change the way that product works?

if we agree as a society that the way the product work does not fit with our society ideals, then yes, definitely ? Especially when the person buying it will likely not have a lot of information / put a lot of thought in the issue. Laws are meant to protect people from that.

What does banning closed hardware accomplish? It won't result in equivalent open hardware, except at the margin where it doesn't matter.

>In the spirit of this particular story, I'd like to ask HN the following question: Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

You can have both ways. You can sell, but after 1 year (or 2) it becomes open.

What does the "entire stack" mean? Does it apply to e.g. cars?

> Should closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?

I think the problem here arises not from the DRM (which I tend to believe is OK for clear cut cases like the above movie player), but from the universality of the smartphone device. Because of this universality, the phone is in a way "essential", so the "contract" you (as an end user) have with Apple is not able to encompass every use case of the device.

In this particular case, you might have bought the phone/tablet with the sole (or main - I know kids) purpose to play Fortnite on it. Now, because of politics, you can no longer use the phone for your initial intended purpose. Not because something you did, but because of something Apple and Epic did.

So it should be either forbidden for Apple, or they should be obliged to fully refund you, because the device is no longer usable for the original purpose you used it.

In an "ideal" world (with much less regulation), Apple would not be protected from such litigation (and now they are, because of the fine print) where users demand refund because of such things, but the world is not ideal. The regulation is there, so we should extend it onto Apple, who need to be "reduced" to something more like a utility company.

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