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Comment by LMYahooTFY | Hacker News Reader

> I'm also pretty confident that if apple and their services disappeared tomorrow, my iphone would keep on working just like it does today. Sure, no more updates, no more new apps, it would be frozen in the state it's in.

You can hardly call that "working like it does today". It doesn't. When features on it inevitably cease to work or be interoperable, you're screwed. And every day, you're probably more vulnerable to crime.

If I buy a house, I can learn to maintain it and keep it secured. I can't do that with my iPhone.

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>If I buy a house, I can learn to maintain it and keep it secured. I can't do that with my iPhone.

For the argument's sake, your ability to do things to your own house is restricted by zoning, by HOA and god forbid you from buying something of historical significance in Europe -- then you can't change anything inside or outside and you are responsible for it.

I think it's important to make a distinction between the restrictions imposed by law and restrictions imposed by the seller.

For pretty much every thing there are restrictions on what you can do with it - if I buy a phone, I'm prohibited from smashing it into my neighbour's face, and grinding it up and baking into the cookies I sell would be a violation of health&safety rules, but that's still full ownership.

Now, if the seller wants to impose extra restrictions above and beyond what the general society does, that's a different issue.

True, and those issues are subjected to the same philosophical debates. Historical buildings are often categorically different, but HOAs (for a product manufactured and sold to you, as well as the land itself) are lambasted for the same reasons.

> god forbid you from buying something of historical significance in Europe -- then you can't change anything inside or outside and you are responsible for it.

What an exaggeration. Do you think such hyperbole strengthens your point? At best it makes you sound ignorant.

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