Essential - adjective - absolutely necessary; extremely important.
Game consoles are not. Smartphones are. Obviously.
Game consoles are not. Smartphones are. Obviously.
There is no exact point. It is a spectrum.
And phones are clearly on the side of essential.
We do not need an exact cutoff point to make judgements about an obvious case.
The criteria would be "Whatever a jury or judge determines what the definition of essential is, in each specific lawsuit or case". Thats how the law works.
The law is not determined by some sort of exact programming code.
Instead, the law is determined by people. "I'll know it when I see it" is an actual argument, that the supreme court gave, for determining a similar question about what the definition of pornography is.
So, the answer for what "essential" is, is the same answer that the literal supreme court used, which is "I'll know it when I see it" or "whatever the judge/jury decides".
If that answer is good enough for the supreme court, then it is good enough for me.
> You’re invoking the fallacy, not me
Actually you were the one using the fallacy. Because you are attempting to demand an exact cutoff point, which is not necessary. The law does not need to define exact cutoff points ahead of time.
Instead, the law can consider those questions, as they come, in a court case/trial.
Again this is incorrect. I have not “demanded an exact cutoff point” at any time.
> Instead, the law can consider those questions, as they come, in a court case/trial.
So in other words you’re making a claim and then your defense of that claim is “the law will decide in a court case”. Ok… lol.
You said this "I asked at what point something crosses over "
This is literally you asking at what point something crosses over.
You shouldn't ask questions in the way that you are, if you don't want them to be interpreted in this way.
Because the poor way that you are asking questions, is such that other people have noticed the same similar issues that I am noticing with them, by looking at all the other questions/way that you are interreacting with people.
And now that I clarified what I meant you are still going on about it. Why? Are you interested in a discussion or are you more interested in trying to play "gotcha" on the Internet?
The issue here, is that the way you are speaking, and phrasing your questions, is leading everyone else to believe that you are the one playing gotcha. Thats what everyone else is saying to you, based on their responses.
When you ask bad questions, that you should know the answer to, it comes off as a disingenuous attempt to trick someone up (Because, since the question should have an obvious answer, it is not clear why you are asking it in the first place).
But in general something is essential when it is required to participate/function/exist/live/thrive meaningfully in society. These days lots of governments require that you have a smart phone to check in when you go somewhere or to show a digital vaccine certificate. Before that some big social media platforms (which is a big part of society) was either exclusive to mobile or designed to work best on mobile. Some services requires using a mobile app to interact with said service (account management). My current bank is mobile only as an example.
You'll need a stronger argument to claim that something that almost everyone uses despite significant cost isn't essential.
And to be clear when you say essential you mean for everyone alive right?
And for the record, governments have laws to step in when gasoline or food supplies become unavailable. And in the US, at least, being able to drive is seen as a right in the eyes of the public.
Yes, grocery stores are essential. Yes, gasoline is essential, being the only source of energy for all long range transportation.
Yes cars are essential in many places where there's no good alternative. For example most of America, geographically.
I’m trying to establish what other industries are “essential” so I can try and understand how we regulate such industries and in what ways they are similar to the discussion here about Apple. If grocery stores are essential for example does that mean they should have to stock competitor store brand products if the competitor want to sell at that store? If I live in a town with only one grocery store and I want to pay with Bitcoin should they have to set up that payment mechanism? Should they have to accept all payment mechanisms? There are lots of questions here that you can open up that draw parallels with Apple here w.r.t being “essential”.
One of the many differences is that the duopoly of Apple and Google in mobile markets is effectively unbreakable without government regulation. Today there is no amount of billions you can spend to break their moat. In contrast, grocery stores are highly competitive because they don't have insurmountable barriers to entry. Anyone can lease retail space and sign up with a distributor. There are lots of independent grocery stores operating in many towns.