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Comment by wvenable | Hacker News Reader

What if the TV manufacturer didn't even need retail distribution because they have their own warehouses, trucks, etc and will gladly send you a TV for $0 and charge on-device subscription fees to cover it.

But sadly, you bought your home in a neighborhood with an HOA, and even though you own your home, the HOA requires all retail purchases have to go through them, and they take a 30% cut of everything and they won't let you order that TV directly from the manufacturer to put in your house.

But this is ok, because this is what you agreed to when you bought your home.

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Then you’d have a different situation. The warehouses, trucks etc are the app store and iPhones. In order for that TV manufacturer to have their own, they’d have to build their own devices, OS and cloud services.

The iPhone is your house -- you own that. The HOA is Apple -- the people who make the rules. The trucks and warehouses are the servers and the internet.

Epic already runs a store they don't need the app store to distribute their apps and do payments. They're only required because Apple gives them no other option.

Apple isn’t an HOA, HOAs dictate what people can do with houses that the HOA had no hand in building. Apple built the houses and the logistics network that made building and selling them possible.

Also, the majority of people do not own their houses, banks do. Try financing a house and then stop servicing your loan. That’s essentially what Epic has done: breached contract.

Epic’s “store” is an app, and evidently they do need Apple to distribute it to Apple devices, unless you can tell me how to install it right now on my device?

You're muddying the issue here on purpose. Mortgages are irrelevant to the analogy. The logistics network is irrelevant. If you buy a TV, there is a big logistics network in making and building them too -- so what?

> unless you can tell me how to install it right now on my device?

This is the dictionary definition of begging the question. You can't install apps on the iPhone because you can't install apps on the iPhone -- that's not an argument.

Software distribution and installation, historically, not required an "app store". That's a relatively new invention.

Great analogy.

Is that ok? It would seem that people entered the contract together without duress?

Are there other neighborhoods? Run by other HOAs with better terms? Isn't it a market contest at that point to see which one buyers will prefer?

They definitely entered into that contract without duress.

But the majority of other neighborhoods are also run by HOAs with similar terms. There are a few neighborhoods that are completely free of HOAs that but those houses are not as nice and neighborhoods not as nice. If you want a nice house in a nice neighborhood, an HOA is your only option.

I'm positive some people, if they had the option, would prefer to buy their current house free of the HOA. Others, on the other hand, like that HOA protects their neighborhood and don't care that they can't paint their house a different color or buy TV's directly from manufacturers.

Sadly, the house and neighborhood you want determines whether or not you'll have to enter into that contract with a particular HOA.

> There are a few neighborhoods that are completely free of HOAs that but those houses are not as nice and neighborhoods not as nice.

I think the HOA tries to argue that this isn't coincidence - its the HOA's policies and governance that have resulted in the niceness (we can cite examples that both support this and contradict this, of course, so its hard to assess whether this is true).

Folks might argue that it isn't fair that the most desirable goods are encumbered, but then its kind of up to them to create or support institutions that can manufacture the unencumbered version. That's the promise of a market opportunity where we can create brand new neighborhoods to test your hypothesis that people will prefer the nice-but-no-HOA version (I think the recent buzz around the Framework laptops is an example of this).

No it would not be okay, factories used to pay their workers with coupons to be spent exclusively in company stores.

Agreed - but I think that would be an example of a contract under duress - the workers have no choice and the company can exploit them.

With iPhones I think we have a choice, and while it isn't ideal, we can vote with our wallets and support other institutions or companies.

But that's exactly like arguing the workers can just get another job.

Well but that TV requires power lines to operate, and fiber to get its content. Insofar as the neighborhood (or whoever) paid for those, they deserve a cut too.

The HOA forces you to use their power and fiber, so in that case sure. But if you could get power and fiber directly from the TV manufacturer or someone else, then the HOA doesn't need a cut.

In this case, the TV manufacturer already has all that infrastructure and they use it in neighborhoods without an HOA. It would be no cost to you or the HOA for you use it but the HOA just doesn't allow it. For obvious reasons, of course, because then they wouldn't get their cut.

If HOAs are so bad why does anyone buy a home in an HOA neighborhood?

If iOS only running Apple’s signed code is so bad why do people keep buying iOS devices?

You want a nice home in a nice neighborhood or a nice phone with a nice OS. Maybe you want to avoid an HOA but the home/phone you want isn't available without it. You can always choose another phone/home in another HOA controlled neighborhood. Or alternatively you could get a PinePhone or a crack house.

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