Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucianbr | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how well Apple would sell phones if radio spectrum was unregulated and anyone would be allowed to design and build devices that emit radio waves on any wavelength at any power. After all, this is the world you want, where governments aren't allowed to decide companies' designs.

My guess is cellular telephony would not exist at all in this world.

View on HN

That example would pollute the EM spectrum, a public resource.

A company with its own ecosystem and design doesn't.

Proprietary charging cables lead to more e-waste, which is a public externality as well.

The reasoning is that apple's marketplace is such a central cornerstone to digital life that it becomes a public resource.

And proprietary chargers, particularly multiple revisions within a single product line, pollute the actual ecosystem.

Regulation at the EU level - outside of their moral crusade regarding e2e encryption - tends to be more about combatting planned obsolescence and promoting CSR at the expense of an increased BOM.

These are symptoms of the actual problem with US based MNCs which lies with at the US Federal level, characterised by rabid lobbying for deregulation and genuflecting at the altar of fiduciary responsibility to shareholders.

You pretend to have a principle that the government should not interfere, but you carve out an exception whenever the principle bothers Apple. You'll always find something, I'm sure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com